Govology Webinar Announcement! Small Business Size Standards and Affiliation: Lessons for Every Federal Contractor, May 15, 2025, 1:00pm EDT

For small business set-aside contracts, including socioeconomic set-asides like the 8(a) program, a federal contractor must meet the SBA’s size standards. These size standards vary by industry and solicitation and are based on either average annual receipts or the number of employees. But size alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Many small businesses are surprised to learn that they could be deemed affiliated with other entities based on factors such as ownership, management, family relationships, or subcontracting. If the SBA finds companies affiliated, it will combine the receipts or employees of the various companies, which can disqualify a company from small business programs.

In this training, you will learn:

  • How the SBA determines business size using receipts or employee counts
  • When and how size standards apply in federal contracting
  • Common size determination pitfalls small businesses face
  • The SBA’s concept of affiliation and why it matters (and doesn’t always match up with common sense)
  • The various SBA rules governing affiliation, and what does not trigger affiliation
  • How sharing resources, including subcontracts, in certain contexts could trigger affiliation
  • Examples of affiliation inspired by actual situations
  • Tips for avoiding unintended affiliation and staying compliant
  • What happens if you’re found “other than small”—and how to respond

Whether you’re new to federal contracting or looking to grow your small business through set-aside opportunities or partnering with small businesses, this session will give you the tools to know about small business size standards, affiliation, and positioning your company to play by these rules. 

Hope you can join us! Register here.

SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 28-May 2, 2025

Happy May, SmallGovCon readers! Welcome to the Week in Review. We are entering the end of the school year for those with kiddos, a time when we all start dreaming of those summer vacations, right on the horizon. But in federal contracting, there were a number of interesting updates. These included a request from OMB for patience as it rolls out changes, and a GSA launch of its “OneGov” strategy to streamline how goods and services are procured. Have a great weekend!

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 21-25, 2025

Happy Friday! April is almost over and it’s time to get out there and star mowing those lawns! We have had quite a bit of rain here in the Midwest so the grass is growing pretty fast right now. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and can get outside to enjoy the Spring weather.

This week in federal government contracting news included updates on staff reorganizations, rewriting of the procurement rules, and use of commercial solutions.

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A Look at the Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (Part III)

For a few weeks now, we have looked at a recent Court of Federal Claims (COFC) decision in two parts regarding the duty of good faith and fair dealing. In the first part, we observed how insistence on the terms of a contract is not a breach of good faith and fair dealing. In the second part, we discussed several separate considerations ranging from a decision to not move a project forward to the next phase to rejection of a claim of a government cabal. Now, we will conclude our look at this decision with the court’s review of the SBIR/STTR policy directive and its impact on the case.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 14-18, 2025

Welcome to the latest edition of the Week in Review. It’s been a busy week in the federal government contracting world and the attorney-authors at SmallGovCon are striving to provide you with the latest updates. Some key stories from this week include executive orders on massive procurement reform (read our summary here) and the push for commercial IT solutions, to ongoing agency-level budget tightening, it’s been a wild ride. Have a great weekend!

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Breaking: EO Mandates “FAR 2.0” & Deep Dive Into Federal Procurement Efficiency

Yesterday, the new administration issued a new Executive Order (EO) officially requiring a reformation of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and a thorough review of the federal procurement system in general. Along with related EOs, they direct the Office of Federal Public Procurement Policy (OFPP), the FAR Council, and the heads of and “senior acquisition and procurement officials” from our federal agencies to create the “FAR 2.0”–as it has aptly been deemed. And they have 180 days to do it.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 7-11, 2025

Happy Friday! We hope you had a great week. This week in federal government contracting: GSA has announced a fresh round of OASIS Plus unrestricted awardees, expanding opportunities for vendors in the professional services space, and OMB also released memos signaling new AI policy goals. You can read more about this and other federal government contracting news in the articles below. Have a great weekend!

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