An agency isn’t required to cancel a small business set-aside solicitation if the agency learns that one of the small businesses upon whom the set-aside decision rested is no longer small.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO confirmed that an agency need not redo its “rule of two” determination when a potential small business competitor outgrows its size standard–even if it could effectively convert a particular solicitation into a “rule of one.”
As we get closer to the end of the fiscal year, things can get a little crazy in the world of government contracts. This week is no exception, with plenty of news and commentary in our SmallGovCon Week In Review.
In this mid-September edition, court documents reveal a bribery scheme centered on a former VA OSDBU official, the GSA has relaxed certain contracting rules to speed efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Harvey, the OFPP is planning a third in its series of highly-regarded “mythbusters” memos, and much more.
Contracting officers have wide discretion to determine that a business can perform the work in question—even if the business is about to enter bankruptcy.
In a recent GAO protest, an unsuccessful offeror challenged just such a determination, saying that there is no way the awarded business could perform because it was nearly bankrupt. But according to the GAO, so long as the agency considered the pending bankruptcy, it was not improper to make an award.
What goes around, comes around.
The government sometimes refuses to pay a contractor for a modification when the government official requesting the modification lacks appropriate authority. But contractual authority isn’t a one-way street benefiting only the government. A recent decision by the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals demonstrates that a contractor may not be bound by a final waiver and release of claims if the individual signing on the contractor’s behalf lacked authority.
A communication to a contracting officer taking issue with an awardee’s size can be treated as a size protest–even if the offeror making the communication didn’t intend to file a size protest.
That’s what happened in Sea Box, Inc., SBA No. SIZ-5846 (Aug. 7, 2017), when an offeror accidentally initiated a size protest after losing an award. Continue reading…
Sometimes you may find yourself running late. It happens to the best of us for a multitude of reasons. But what happens to federal contractors when they are running late in performing under a contract and there is “no reasonable likelihood” of timely performance?
Unfortunately for contractors in this position, as illustrated by a recent Civilian Board of Contract Appeals (CBCA) decision, the result may be a default termination.
I am pleased to announce that Shane McCall has joined our team of government contracts attorney-authors here at SmallGovCon. Shane is an associate attorney with Koprince Law LLC, where his practice focuses on federal government contracts law.
Before joining our team, Shane was an attorney with Lentz Clark Deines PA, where he advised individuals and small businesses alike on complex legal matters. Check out Shane’s full biography to learn more about our newest author, and don’t miss his first SmallGovCon post on how “fair and reasonable pricing” is evaluated under solicitations requiring line-item prices.