Contracting Officers are not required to assist potential protesters by furnishing them with information to use in SBA size protests.
According to a recent size appeal decision of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, the SBA properly dismissed a size protest for lack of support, notwithstanding the protester’s allegation that the Contracting Officer had failed to provide information needed to support the size protest.
A firm’s small business size status for federal procurements is measured by the firm’s revenues, not by its profits.
As the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals explained in a recent size determination, measuring small business status by reference to profits would allow some very large companies to qualify as “small.”
An unsuccessful offeror’s email to the Contracting Officer, in which the offeror expressed “concerns” about the awardee’s small business size status, was too vague to constitute an SBA size protest.
According to a recent decision of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, a viable size protest must be explicit enough to alert the Contracting Officer that the offeror is protesting the awardee’s size.
“Common investments” affiliation under the SBA affiliation rules can occur when the SBA believes that two individuals’ common investments in multiple companies will cause the individuals in question to act with a common purpose.
A recent SBA OHA size appeal decision shows how the common investments rule can work in practice–in this case, resulting in the business in question being deemed affiliated with several other companies.
GAO bid protests decreased slightly in Fiscal Year 2013, down 2% from the previous year. The “effectiveness rate” for protesters–a statistic that includes both formal GAO sustain decisions and voluntary agency corrective actions–was 43%, up slightly from FY 2012.
The GAO’s FY 2013 statistics are included in its January 2 Annual Report to Congress, which also includes a few other bid protest tidbits of note.
The SBA has issued a final rule eliminating the unusual megawatt hours size standard applicable to six NAICS codes in NAICS Sector 22. The SBA’s revision replaces the megawatt hours size standard with a 500-employee size standard, and eliminates the requirement that a firm must be “primarily engaged” in the generation, transmission or distribution of energy for sale.
Although the megawatt hours size standard may have made sense when it was adopted in the 1970s, the SBA appropriately recognized that the market has changed. Perhaps most important, the “primarily engaged” component of the megawatt hours size standard unfairly excluded many companies from competing as “small” in NAICS Sector 22.
With Christmas two days away and 2014 right around the corner, it’s time to enjoy the holidays, reflect on the year that was, and look forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead.
With that in mind, this will be the last SmallGovCon post of 2013. I’ll be spending the holidays sharing in my two-year-old daughter’s excitement about Santa Claus and marveling at my one-year-old son’s sudden transformation into an adorable toddler with a penchant for pulling everything out of any closed drawer in sight.
SmallGovCon will be back in the New Year with much more legal news for government contractors. (If you want to ring in the New Year by reading up on GAO decisions, SBA OHA appeals, or the nuances of the 2013 NDAA, my archives should have you covered). Until then, best wishes for a wonderful and joyous holiday season.