After spending the majority of the week in Norman, Oklahoma for the ICBS Show, I am back in the office, and ready for our weekly dose of government contracts news and commentary.
This week, a large corporation gets busted for misusing taxpayer money, the IT industry is becoming more and more concerned about new cybersecurity rules, the government’s operation of two separate SDVOSB programs causes confusion, and much more.
I am back in Kansas after spending two days at the Indian Country Business Summit in Norman, Oklahoma. My presentation at the conference addressed recent legal developments in government contracting–and if you have been following SmallGovCon, you know there are a lot of big changes happening.
Many thanks to all of the sponsors and organizers for putting together the event and inviting me to speak. A big thank you, as well, to all of those who attended the conference (attendance was up significantly over last year) and made this such a great event.
If you are in the Midwest but missed the ICBS, you can catch me in Overland Park on September 18, when I will give a seminar on commercial acquisitions and negotiated procurements. I hope to see you there!
An 8(a) mentor-protege joint venture was not entitled to take advantage of the special mentor-protege exception from affiliation because the joint venture agreement lacked adequate detail.
In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims held that the SBA had reasonably determined the joint venture to be a large business because the joint venture agreement did not sufficiently address certain requirements. The Court’s decision should be a warning for all 8(a) mentor-protege joint ventures: details matter.
The VA’s decision not to issue a SDVOSB set-aside was improper because the VA adopted an unreasonably narrow approach to determining whether two or more SDVOSBs were likely to submit proposals.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that the VA’s narrow market research did not support its set-aside determination. And in so holding, the GAO reaffirmed its position that the VA must put “veterans first” in federal procurements.
As we head into the final week of August, there is plenty going on in the world of government contracting. In this week’s SmallGovCon Week In Review, an in-depth article on alleged 8(a) fraud, a contractor is hit with felony charges for bribing a government official, and much more.
After a protest was filed at the GAO, a procuring agency delayed implementing the mandatory statutory suspension of work, then amended the awardee’s contract to permit the awardee to fully perform before the suspension actually kicked in.
Then the agency got caught.
In a recent decision, the GAO sustained a protest because the agency had circumvented the GAO’s bid protest process. But while the agency got busted–a good thing–the penalty it will pay is less than satisfactory.
GAO lacks jurisdiction to decide a protest relating to a solicitation under which the government will receive de minimis value.
De minimis is a fancy Latin term meaning, essentially, “not much.” In one recent bid protest decision, GAO held that it lacked jurisdiction to consider a protester’s challenge to the terms of a solicitation because the solicitation called for the contractor to purchase scrap metal from the government, not the other way around.