Want to receive a service-disabled veteran-owned small business set-aside contract from the Federal Aviation Administration? Get listed in the VA’s VetBiz database. The FAA has adopted a regulation requiring VA VetBiz certification as a requirement of winning a FAA SDVOSB set-aside award. One interesting question: will other agencies follow the FAA’s lead?
Category Archives: Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses
Here We Go Again: Another Aldevra-Style GAO Protest Sustained–Is a Court Resolution Looming?
Kids love repetition. Even though my daughter isn’t 10 months old yet, some of her favorite games involve doing the same thing over and over. For instance, she throws a toy. I pick it up and give it back to her. She throws it again. And so on. She finds this hilarious, whereas I find the whole thing funny just because she’s so adorable (I admit to a bit of bias).
Repetition is also the name of the game in the GAO’s standoff with the VA over the VA’s refusal to set-aside procurements for SDVOSBs before procuring goods and services under the Federal Supply Schedule. The GAO recently sustained yet another bid protest, holding that the VA had improperly awarded a contract to a non-SDVOSB, even though 20 or more SDVOSBs were capable of doing the work. But before long, the showdown between the GAO and the VA may end, because one SDVOSB seems to have taken the matter to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which–unlike the GAO–has the power to compel the VA to put “Veterans First.”
SDVOSB Eligibility: Lack of VetBiz Verification Irrelevant for Non-VA SDVOSB Set-Asides
“So what?”
That, in essence, is what the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals had to say in a recent SDVOSB appeal decision, in which the protester contended that the service-disabled veteran-owned small business in question was not listed in the VA’s VetBiz database. The SBA OHA decision serves as an important reminder: CVE verification only matters for VA SDVOSB set-asides. When another agency sets-aside a procurement for SDVOSBs, there is no requirement that the awardee be listed in the VetBiz database.
SBA OHA: VA Mentor-Protege Program Does Not Protect Participants From Affiliation
My parents taught me that it’s not polite to say, “I told you so.” Mom and Dad are big proponents of being polite, and their lessons (by and large) stuck. For instance, even in this day and age of abbreviated text messages and quick emails written on handheld devices, I always begin and end every business email with a salutation, and end with “regards,” or something along those lines. Unnecessary? Perhaps. But I like to think I am going the extra mile toward being polite.
Today, however, politeness is going to have to take a little hiatus, because I can’t resist saying, “I told you so.” For more than a year, I have been warning small government contractors that assistance received from a mentor firm under any federal mentor-protege program other than the SBA 8(a) mentor-protege program or DoD mentor-protege program is probably not shielded from the SBA’s affiliation analysis.
Now, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals has confirmed that participating in the VA’s mentor-protege program does not offer any protection from affiliation.
The Aldevra Saga Continues–and the GAO Throws the VA Some Lifelines
The VA has gotten beaten up pretty badly at the GAO lately. The governmental watchdog agency continues to sustain protests (the most notable being filed by a company named Aldevra) on the basis that the VA’s practice of obtaining goods and services on the Federal Supply Schedule without first determining whether the procurements can be set aside for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses or veteran-owned small businesses is illegal.
However, in a recent bid protest decision regarding the same issue, the GAO ruled in the VA’s favor—and its ruling could bring an end to the Aldevra saga (an end many SDVOSBs and VOSBs are likely to find very unsatisfactory), if the VA accepts the GAO’s lifeline.
Is it Groundhog Day? Aldevra Strikes Again
In the kitschy but rather enjoyable 1993 movie Groundhog Day, a still young-looking Bill Murray plays a weatherman who finds himself repeating the same day over and over. For those following the battle between Aldevra, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business (and others in Aldevra’s corner), and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, a Groundhog Day-style repetition seems to have emerged.
First, the VA issues an unrestricted solicitation under the Federal Supply Schedule. Second, Aldevra (or someone else), files a bid protest with the GAO, alleging that the VA’s use of the FSS violates its “Veterans First” obligations. Third, the GAO sustains the protest. And fourth, the VA keeps on doing it.
So here’s another Aldevra protest–any guesses what happens next?
SDVOSBs: Beware of Loans From Minority Owners
When I was in fifth grade, I had to go door-to-door selling candy bars to raise money for a class field trip. I worked up the courage to peddle assorted chocolates to most of the neighbors, but avoided houses with those ominous “BEWARE OF DOG” signs. I was selling snacks; I didn’t want to become a snack myself for some large canine.
For service-disabled veteran-owned small business owners, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals has recently hung up its own ominous sign: “BEWARE OF LOANS,” at least when they come from non-service-disabled minority owners. In SDVOSB Appeal of Rush-Link One Joint Venture, SBA No. VET-228 (2012), the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals found that loan arrangements between a service-disabled veteran and the company’s minority owners abrogated the service-disabled veteran owner’s control over the company.