Category Archives: SBA OHA Decisions

Includes decisions of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, including size appeal decisions, service-disabled veteran-owned small business appeal decisions, NAICS code appeal decisions, and women-owned small business appeal decisions.

SBA OHA: No Automatic Size Recertifications For GSA Schedule Task Orders

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Submitting a proposal for a GSA Schedule task order does not result in an automatic recertification of the offeror’s size.

In a recent size appeal decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals rejected the argument that an offeror recertifies its size merely by submitting a proposal for a GSA task order.  Instead, a firm’s size for purposes of a GSA Schedule task order competition is determined based on the underlying GSA Schedule contract, unless the procuring agency requires recertification for the task order.

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SBA OHA: Prime Contractor Not Economically Dependent On Subcontractor

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A prime contractor was not economically dependent on its subcontractor for purposes of the SBA affiliation rules because a prime contractor “has the power to choose whatever subcontractor it desires.”

In a recent size appeal decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals stopped short of holding that a prime contractor could never be economically dependent on a subcontractor, but SBA OHA’s decision indicates that if such dependence ever existed, it would be in an unusual case.

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SBA Size Protests: COs Not Required To Assist Protesters

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Contracting Officers are not required to assist potential protesters by furnishing them with information to use in SBA size protests.

According to a recent size appeal decision of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, the SBA properly dismissed a size protest for lack of support, notwithstanding the protester’s allegation that the Contracting Officer had failed to provide information needed to support the size protest.

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SBA OHA: Small Business Size Not Measured By Profits

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A firm’s small business size status for federal procurements is measured by the firm’s revenues, not by its profits.

As the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals explained in a recent size determination, measuring small business status by reference to profits would allow some very large companies to qualify as “small.”

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SBA Size Protests: Expressing “Concerns” Is Not Enough

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An unsuccessful offeror’s email to the Contracting Officer, in which the offeror expressed “concerns” about the awardee’s small business size status, was too vague to constitute an SBA size protest.

According to a recent decision of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, a viable size protest must be explicit enough to alert the Contracting Officer that the offeror is protesting the awardee’s size.

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The SBA’s “Common Investments” Affiliation Rule: A SBA OHA Primer

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“Common investments” affiliation under the SBA affiliation rules can occur when the SBA believes that two individuals’ common investments in multiple companies will cause the individuals in question to act with a common purpose.

A recent SBA OHA size appeal decision shows how the common investments rule can work in practice–in this case, resulting in the business in question being deemed affiliated with several other companies.

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SBA Size Protests: “Bare Allegations” Are Insufficient

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A SBA size protest must contain some basis for the belief that the company being protested is not an eligible small business.

As demonstrated in a recent decision of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, a protester’s “bare allegation” that the protested firm does not qualify is insufficient, and will cause the SBA to dismiss the size protest.

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