By the middle of this year, the U.S. Small Business Administration should have a strategy in place to assist small businesses with cybersecurity.
The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act is chock full of interesting legal changes for government contractors, and although we have chronicled it in depth, that does not mean there is not necessarily more to be mined from the whopping 1,587-page legislation.
An offeror submitting a proposal under a solicitation designated with the Information Technology Value Added Resellers exception to NAICS code 541519 must qualify as a small business under a 150-employee size standard–even if the offeror is a nonmanufacturer.
In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims held that an ITVAR nonmanufacturer cannot qualify as small based solely on the ordinary 500-employee size standard under the nonmanufacturer rule, but instead must also qualify as small under the much smaller size standard associated with the ITVAR NAICS code exception.
President Obama signed the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act into law on December 23, 2016. As is often the case, the NDAA included many changes affecting government contractors.
Here at SmallGovCon, my colleagues and I have been following the 2017 NDAA closely. Here’s a roundup of all 16 posts we’ve written about the government contracting provisions of the 2017 NDAA.
Under the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, the DoD has the discretion to forego a price or cost evaluation in connection with the award of certain multiple-award contracts.
The 2017 NDAA includes some important changes that are sure to impact federal procurements. Section 825 of the NDAA, which allows DoD contracting officers to forego price or cost evaluations in certain circumstances, is one of these changes.
Congress is taking a hard look at how to promote increased competition in federal contracting.
Among the provisions in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act is a requirement for the GAO to prepare a report on how the DoD enters into and uses indefinite delivery contracts–and recommendations for changes to promote competition with respect to indefinite delivery contracts.
Under the Competition in Contracting Act, the Government Accountability Office is required to issue an annual report to Congress that summarizes the “most prevalent grounds” of sustained protests, identifies the instances in which GAO was not able to decide a protest within its 100-day deadline, and list any protest where the agency did not follow GAO’s recommendations.
The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act doubles down on this first requirement: it mandates that GAO provide Congress with a list of the most common grounds for sustaining protests. This only begs the question: why would Congress require GAO to do something it’s already required to do (and that it’s already doing)?
The SBA has corrected a flaw in the profit-splitting provisions of its new joint venture regulations.
Under the corrected regulations, which became effective on December 27, all of the SBA’s joint venture regulations–those for small businesses, SDVOSBs, HUBZones, 8(a)s, and WOSBs–will require that each joint venturer receive profits commensurate with the work it performs. The SBA’s revisions clear up an inconsistency between the 8(a) joint venture regulations and the regulations for the SBA’s other set-aside programs, and eliminates a potential disincentive for joint venturers to avail themselves of the protections of a formal legal entity such as a limited liability company.