Good news for veteran-owned contractors: the VA’s SDVOSB and VOSB “Rule of Two” applies even when the VA issues a solicitation for a multiple-award IDIQ contract. A recent GAO decision represents the latest instance where the VA’s failure to apply the Rule of Two and set-aside a procurement for SDVOSBs has been found to be […]
Where an agency buys manufactured goods, the FAR’s Rule of Two is satisfied when two or small business manufacturers of the end products exist. It is not enough, as GAO recently held, for two or more small business distributors of manufactured products to exist.
The Small Business Act envisions that small businesses will be awarded a “fair proportion” of government contracts. To meet this goal, the FAR instructs agencies to set aside for small businesses acquisitions over $150,000 if there is a reasonable expectation that offers will be received from at least two responsible small businesses, at fair market prices. While the Rule […]
When conducting market research to determine whether a small business set-aside is appropriate under the “rule of two,” a procuring agency must do more than determine whether multiple small businesses are likely to submit proposals–it must also make reasonable efforts to ascertain whether those small businesses are capable of performing the work. In a recent […]
Agencies are not required to investigate the availability of small business offerors when ordering goods and services off the Federal Supply Schedule, even if multiple small business concerns would be able to compete for the contract. As the GAO recently held in Walker Development & Trading Group, B-411357 (July 8, 2015), the small business preferences […]
A small business’s expression of interest in a solicitation came too late to affect the agency’s set-aside decision under the so-called “rule of two,” even though there was no indication that the small business knew about the requirement early enough to affect the set-aside decision. In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that […]
It is no doubt that the SBA’s 8(a) Business Development Program is a first-class program: there is a reason that some of us around here tend to say that it is one of the most important of federal government contracting programs. And in the past year, there has been a flurry of activity surrounding the […]