Happy Friday, Readers! I hope you are all staying cool. It seems the whole country is under a heat advisory and we are not the exception here at SmallGovCon, with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. Whew…who’s ready for Fall?
There was a lot of news in the federal government contracting world this week and we’ve included some articles that we hope you will find informative. Have a great weekend and enjoy the AC or a cool pool to lounge in.
Continue reading…Once again, the incumbent service worker rule has had its pendulum swing back to the hiring of incumbent workers, reflecting a “general policy of the Federal Government that service contracts which succeed contracts for the same or similar services, and solicitations for such contracts, shall include a non-displacement clause.” This proposed rule would insert a contract clause requiring contractors who are awarded a service contract with an incumbent on it, to offer employment to the incumbent contractor employees, for performance of the contract. This is of course quite the shift from current regulations, but it also places many new contract compliance requirements on contractors awarded a new contract as they try and stand up performance.
Continue reading…Affiliation is quite possibly one of the scariest words to small business government contractors. And it is easily one of the most misunderstood concepts in SBA’s small business regulations. Perhaps the widespread fear and misunderstanding are due to the fact that there are so many potential bases for affiliation listed in SBA’s rules–or the fact that you can be found affiliated with another company even if SBA finds that none of the listed bases for affiliation are met. Or maybe its the fact that, while affiliation isn’t always a bad thing, it can lead to severe consequences, like preventing an otherwise responsible and eligible business from competing under set-asides contracts.
Either way, this “Back to Basics” blog will be the first of two blogs that will “unpack” this concept for you, hopefully, removing some of the mystery. This first blog will provide a general overview of affiliation and what it means for government contractors, while the second blog will focus on the different types of affiliation.
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Hello, Blog Readers! We hope you had a productive week. Here at SmallGovCon we have been geeking out to the new images from the James Webb Space Telescope. If you haven’t seen the spectacular images, we encourage you to do so! This photo was captured in infrared light and the image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of the universe.
“The Webb team’s incredible success is a reflection of what NASA does best. We take dreams and turn them into reality for the benefit of humanity. I can’t wait to see the discoveries that we uncover – the team is just getting started!”, stated NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. You can find more spectacular images from NASA here.
Transitioning from universal news to federal government contacting news, we have included several articles for your reading pleasure including a report about the False Claims settlement for cybersecurity issues that stemmed from a five-year-old whistleblower lawsuit brought by a former employee of the company. Enjoy the weekend and stay cool out there!
TWhile many industries have existed since time immemorial, new industries are created and old industries fade all the time. A mere twenty-five years ago, there was no such thing as social media and video rental stores were all the rage. Now the former is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and the latter is basically extinct. In recognition of the changes that we experience over time, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget routinely revises the North American Industry Classification Systems (NAICS), which the SBA in turn incorporates as the new applicable NAICS codes. More importantly for contractors, this includes a change in size standards for businesses. In early July 2022, the SBA proposed a rule doing just that which would apply effective October 1, 2022, which we will explore in this post.
Continue reading…SBA’s Office of Hearing and Appeals (OHA) recently said that the SBA Area Office should have informed the protested concern of the issues its adverse size determination focused on before ruling against the concern’s size eligibility on that basis. In addition to its lesson on due process, OHA also took this opportunity to distinguish totality of the circumstances affiliation (the basis on which the Area Office found affiliation here) from ostensible subcontractor affiliation (the basis for affiliation alleged in the size protest). OHA vacated and remanded the Area Office’s decision.
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Happy Friday, Readers! We hope you had a nice, long 4th of July weekend and we’d also like to show our appreciation for our veterans and active duty military personnel. Thank you for your service.
This week in federal government contracting news there were announcements from a key cyber agency set to get procurement authority this month as well as an announcement from the Federal Register concerning bid guarantees, performance and payment bonds, and alternative payment protection.
Have a great weekend!
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