SmallGovCon Week In Review: December 16 – December 20, 2019

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Shane McCall

As we roll through the holidays, I hope all of our readers are enjoying a wonderful holiday season with lots of good cheer. Lawrence recently got its first snow of the season. While it won’t stick around for Christmas, it provided for some great sledding opportunities and, perhaps even better, was mostly cleared up by the start of the work week.

This week also saw its fair share of news in the government contracting world, ranging from a warning from DOD that it is getting serious on protecting data, to a fraudulent scheme to capture $260 million in federal contracts, to a report that most agencies don’t use FedRAMP to authorize all cloud services.

Legislative Updates: Small Business Bills in the House (& Senate)!

Posted on December 19, 2019 by SmallGovConContributor

Just like the elves in Santa’s workshop, Congress has been busy this winter season! Among the chaos, three bills with the potential to impact small business Federal government contractors have been percolating. The first and third bill propose amendments to laws already in place covering surviving spouses of SDVOSB owners and the Department of Homeland Security’s Mentor-Protege Program, while the second bill proposes an entirely new SBA program for small businesses geared toward promoting research and development efforts.

Here’s our brief summary of each bill:

New Avenue for SBA Protests: Ostensible Subcontractor Status Protests

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Nicole Pottroff

SBA has issued a final rule, effective December 30, that will now provide an avenue to protest situations where the prime contractor on a SDVOSB, HUBZone, or WOSB set-aside contract is subcontracting most or all of the work to a non-similarly situated—but still small business—concern.

It will also allow SBA to review eligibility for 8(a) Program contracts on this ground as well.

SBA Adds to Compliance Rules for Limitations on Subcontracting

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Shane McCall

Recently, the SBA released a final rule that clarifies some of the mysteries surrounding the limitation on subcontracting rules. The new rule, which goes into effect on December 30, 2019, provides clearer guidelines for contractors, while also creating some new requirements and definitions as discussed below.

GAO Sustains Protest Where Contract Modification Fell Outside the Contract’s Scope

Posted on December 16, 2019 by SmallGovConContributor

GAO protests typically address issues that occur before contract award. For example, GAO will review a solicitation’s terms. It will also review an agency’s evaluation of proposals submitted in connection with a solicitation.

But as a general rule, GAO won’t insert itself into disputes arising after award, which fall under the contract administration umbrella. But there is an exception–and an important one . . . one that all federal contractors should be aware of.

SmallGovCon Week In Review: December 9 – December 13, 2019

Posted on December 13, 2019 by Shane McCall

It’s an exciting time in the federal contracting world. The House and Senate negotiators have resolved their differences on the 2020 NDAA and it should be passed soon. In addition to the article below, you can review our coverage on some of the major provisions that would affect contractors and we’ll also provide updates with any major changes coming out of the final version.

But that’s not the only news. There are are also updates on the flurry of recent SBA rule changes and a new SBA administrator, the DOD’s new cybersecurity model, and a security clearance loophole.

Complicated Business Structures Contribute to Set-Aside Fraud, GAO Finds

Posted on December 12, 2019 by SmallGovConContributor

Fraud is an ever pressing concern in federal contracts, and the federal government goes to great lengths to minimize the risks to introduce fraud into the procurement system.

Unfortunately, a recent GAO report highlighted how complex ownership structures can be leveraged to obscure fraudulent contracting activities. Worse still, complex ownership structures are most frequently leveraged to perpetrate small business set-aside fraud.