In 2017, Congress placed limits on the utilization of Lowest-Price Technically-Acceptable procurement procedures in Department of Defense acquisitions.
The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act continues this trend by completely prohibiting the use of LPTA procedures for certain major defense acquisition programs.
The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has generated lots of headlines regarding the so-called “Amazon amendment” and the Act’s prohibition on the Russian IT company Kaspersky Labs products. But gone under reported is a huge change to how the government makes small purchases.
The 2018 NDAA, signed by President Donald Trump on December 12, increases the standard micro-purchase threshold applicable to civilian agencies from $3,000 to $10,000. Last year, the NDAA increased the Department of Defense (DoD) micro-purchase threshold to $5,000. This larger jump for civilian agencies is likely to have large impact on government purchasing.
The U.S. Air Force cannot buy sporks, at least not in many situations.
One would think that the recently passed $700 billion defense bill would provide a little wiggle room for the military to buy paper plates and utensils for its civilian contractors, but, according to the GAO, that is not necessarily the case.
Almost a year ago, we wrote of a memorandum from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy urging agencies to strengthen the debriefing process. OFPP’s rationale was simple: because effective debriefings tend to reduce the number of protests, agencies should be inclined to enhance the debriefing process.
Congress seems to have taken note: the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Department of Defense to make significant improvements to the debriefing process. That said, those improvements are limited to large DoD acquisitions, leaving many small businesses stuck with the much more limited debriefing rights currently available under the FAR.
The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act put a new twist on potential costs a contractor may incur in filing a GAO bid protest.
While many federal contractors are familiar with the costs arising from a GAO protest, including their attorneys’ fees and consultant and expert witness fees, and some are lucky enough to recoup such costs upon GAO’s sustainment of a protest, under the 2018 NDAA, some large DoD contractors may also be required to reimburse DoD for costs incurred in defending protests denied by GAO.
Asking new employees to sign arbitration agreements is common in the commercial business world. But it can be a big no-no in government contracting.
In a recent bid protest decision, GAO sustained a protest where a Reston, Virginia company required its proposed key personnel to sign binding arbitration agreements. In other words, requiring key personnel to arbitrate employment disputes cost the original awardee a $41 million contract.
The SBA has proposed rules to enable contractors to file protests with the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals challenging the SDVOSB or VOSB status of a company included in the VA’s CVE VetBiz database. The same set of proposed rules would allow a contractor to appeal to OHA if the VA denies the contractor’s application for inclusion in the CVE database, or cancels an existing verification.
The proposed rules, once finalized, will offer important new protections for SDVOSBs and VOSBs and are the first official step in implementing Congress’s mandate that the SBA and VA consolidate their SDVOSB eligibility requirements.