Participants in the SBA’s 8(a) Program must timely submit their annual review packages to the SBA.
In a recent decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals held that the SBA may terminate a participant from the 8(a) Program for failing to provide the required information–even if the 8(a) company’s owner has had personal difficulties that contributed to the failure.
I was grocery shopping the other day, and I had to make the tough choice between the name-brand cereal and the store-brand cereal. I don’t know about you, but with some products, the name brand has a certain flavor that the store brand just can’t replicate. When it comes to government contracts, the same is true–sometimes the government wants a certain brand or supplier and will accept no substitutes.
GAO recently held that, where an agency required quotations including parts from one approved source of supply, and an offer is submitted that proposes an “alternate product,” the agency can reasonably reject the bid–and that a protest of the approved source restriction itself is untimely if it isn’t filed before the proposal deadline.
If you’re a winner under a solicitation, you can’t challenge the ground rules under which you won–at least under the facts of a recent GAO bid protest decision.
In that decision, GAO concluded that the protestor of a solicitation’s terms lacked standing when the protester was subsequently identified as an awardee under the solicitation.
After a 30-degree shift in temperatures here in Lawrence overnight, I think it is safe to say fall has officially arrived. The kids and I will be adding some extra layers while we go trick-or-treating on Tuesday evening.
Candy is on the agenda next week, but today’s treat is the latest SmallGovCon Week in Review. In this edition, the SBA will soon issue a proposed rule to implement a mandatory WOSB certification, a provision in the NDAA would shorten the GAO’s time frame for resolving DoD protests, a business owner will spend 20 months in prison for GSA Schedule fraud, and much more.
Whether you are an active small business federal contractor, or an entrepreneur still getting your business off the ground, you are going to need a cybersecurity plan. Many DoD contractors, in particular, face a pending deadline to comply with NIST 800-171, as mandated by DFARS 252.204-7012.
The Kansas SBDC Cybersecurity Center for Small Business wants to help.
When an agency takes corrective action in response to a bid protest, the agency voluntarily agrees to do something (such as re-evaluate proposals, re-open discussions, or even cancel a solicitation) to address the alleged problems identified in the protest. Corrective actions are quite common: in FY 2016, more than 23% of GAO bid protests resulted in corrective actions.
But what happens when a protester doesn’t like the scope of the agency’s proposed corrective action? As a recent GAO decision demonstrates, corrective actions can themselves be protested–but challenging an agency’s corrective action can be an uphill battle.
An agency’s oral advice, given at a pre-proposal conference, did not amend the solicitation or legally bind the agency.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO reiterated that offerors rely on oral advice from agencies at their own risk–particularly when the oral advice in question appears to contradict the plain language of the solicitation.