Category Archives: Statutes and Regulations

SBA’s Change to Joint Venture Bank Account Rule is Another Trap for the Unwary

Posted on by

If you are part of a joint venture between a small protege and its large mentor under the SBA’s Mentor-Protege Program, heads up: the SBA recently amended its list of mandatory requirements for joint venture agreements to cover what happens to funds left over in the joint venture bank account at the end of a project.

Like the revised recordkeeping rules I discussed in an earlier post, the new required provision only applies to mentor-protege joint ventures pursuing small business set-aside contracts–not to JVs seeking 8(a), SDVOSB/VOSB, WOSB/EDWOSB or HUBZone work. Confusingly (and again, like the recordkeeping rules), SBA’s decision to change only the small business set-aside regulation, 13 C.F.R 125.8, means that the same joint venture agreement may not be valid for both small business set-aside contracts and socioeconomic contracts.

Continue reading →

Update: FAR Final Rule Puts Limits on LPTA Procurements

Posted on by

Lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA) source selection has been on the decline lately. A recent final rule from the FAR Council, effective February 16, 2021, continues this trend. In the rule, the FAR Council implemented additional restrictions on the use of LPTA for non-DoD contracts.

Continue reading →

Buy American Act Domestic Component Threshold Gets A Raise

Posted on by

A new FAR final rule recently went into effect that has increased the percentage for the domestic component requirement under the Buy American Act, a percentage that had been in place for nearly 70 years before this recent change.

Continue reading →

Buy American Act Executive Order Promises Much, Will it Deliver?

Posted on by

The White House has released the final language of the Buy America Act. Our recent post looked forward to what we could expect from the final rule. Now the rule has been released, so what is in it?

The executive order promises quite a bit, and a lot of what is promised we will likely not see until 6 to 12 months down the road.

Here is what to expect now, in 6 months, and then down the road.

Continue reading →

Five Things You Should Know: the FAR’s Independent Pricing Certification

Posted on by

Small businesses will see several major multiple-award solicitations in 2021, including CIO-SP4 and Polaris. As contractors develop their capture strategies for important procurements like these, one frequently-asked question is, “can I be on multiple teams?”

While there is no simple one-size-fits-all, yes/no answer to the “multiple teams” question, an often-overlooked FAR provision provides some important guidance. Let’s take a look at five things you should know about the FAR’s Certificate of Independent Price Determination.

Continue reading →

Five Things to Look for in Executive Order Strengthening Buy American Act

Posted on by

As we have blogged about previously, the Buy American Act has a number of exceptions and waivers. The United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year in contracting alone. The Buy American Act is intended to keep federal dollars in the hands of American companies and manufacturers. The president’s new executive order on these issues, proposes making some significant changes to not only the rule, but to oversight.

Continue reading →