SmallGovCon Week In Review: August 10 – August 14, 2020

This week, the home-grown tomatoes are coming out in full force. It’s one of my favorite foods of the year. Hope you are also enjoying some late summer bounty.

There were other federal contracting updates just this week, such as the ban on certain Chinese products going into effect (which we discussed here), as well as some uncertainty for federal contractors due to recent executive branch announcements.

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Timing Issues: Challenges to Brand Name Salient Characteristics Due Before Proposal Submission, Says GAO

Time. It’s a great Pink Floyd song. It’s also something that frequently trips up contractors filing protests before GAO. As one contractor recently discovered, a challenge to the salient characteristics of a brand name product is equivalent to challenging the terms of a solicitation, which carries a different protest deadline than evaluation challenges.

Unfortunately for the protester, its argument did not fair nearly as well as one of David Gilmour’s solos.

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Whose Jurisdiction is it Anyways? GAO Dismisses Size Challenge

GAO recently dismissed a protest to an awardee’s eligibility under the applicable size standard. The protester argued that the agency should have known that the awardee exceeded the nonmanufacturer rule’s 500-employee maximum. After extensive briefing from both parties and from the SBA itself, GAO found that the awardee’s proposal didn’t raise any issues and that it was really up to the SBA to decide the size issues anyway.

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SBA Inspector General Warns of ‘Widespread’ Fraud in COVID-19 Loan Program

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of the Inspector General, potential fraudsters have obtained $250 million in federal funds intended to help businesses survive the impact of COVID-19.

The Inspector General also identified $45.6 million in potentially duplicate payments and warned that with well over $220 billion left to give out, rapid changes were needed.

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