SmallGovCon Week in Review: July 25-29, 2022

Posted on July 29, 2022 by Shane McCall

We’ve been enjoying summer out here in Lawrence and many of our SmallGovCon professionals are taking a little time to themselves for summer vacation. We hope our readers are able to do the same thing! Whether you’re getting back from a vacation or working regular hours, here’s our weekly roundup of news from the federal government contracting to keep you updated on what’s been happening lately.

This week in the federal government contracting world, there is some interesting news, including the small business procurement scorecard from the SBA, which exceeded its contracting goal and the White House announced initiatives to ensure equity in federal procurement.

Enjoy the weekend!

SBA Final Rule Eases Use of Small Business Joint Venture and Subcontractor Past Performance

Posted on July 28, 2022 by Shane McCall

SBA has issued a final rule that should help small businesses demonstrate their past performance more easily. Perhaps most importantly, the rule will allow for a small business to receive a written performance record, similar to CPARS, showing its performance as a subcontractor to a large business prime. The new rule will also allow a small business to better utilize its past performance that it carried out as a member of a joint venture.

Nonprofit Parent Companies do not Automatically Cause Affiliation for SBA Size Determinations

Posted on July 26, 2022 by Stephanie Ellis

The Office of Hearings and Appeals, more commonly referred to as OHA, is tasked with deciding size determination appeals that arise under the Small Business Act of 1958, as well as 13 C.F.R. parts 121 and 134. When an unsuccessful offeror raises a question, via a size protest, regarding an Awardee’s size under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code on any given solicitation, the SBA Area Office will review the protest and issue a size determination. Then, a losing party can appeal the size determination to OHA.

Affiliation is a common topic that OHA addresses. In a recent decision, OHA looked at the question of how nonprofits fit into the affiliation rules. Since a small business has to be a for-profit entity, can a small business be affiliated with a nonprofit parent company?

SmallGovCon Week in Review: July 18-22, 2022

Posted on July 22, 2022 by Shane McCall

Happy Friday, Readers! I hope you are all staying cool. It seems the whole country is under a heat advisory and we are not the exception here at SmallGovCon, with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. Whew…who’s ready for Fall?

There was a lot of news in the federal government contracting world this week and we’ve included some articles that we hope you will find informative. Have a great weekend and enjoy the AC or a cool pool to lounge in.

FAR Proposed Rule: Incumbent Service Workers Need to be Hired

Posted on July 21, 2022 by Gregory Weber

Once again, the incumbent service worker rule has had its pendulum swing back to the hiring of incumbent workers, reflecting a “general policy of the Federal Government that service contracts which succeed contracts for the same or similar services, and solicitations for such contracts, shall include a non-displacement clause.” This proposed rule would insert a contract clause requiring contractors who are awarded a service contract with an incumbent on it, to offer employment to the incumbent contractor employees, for performance of the contract. This is of course quite the shift from current regulations, but it also places many new contract compliance requirements on contractors awarded a new contract as they try and stand up performance.

Back to Basics: Affiliation, An Overview

Posted on July 19, 2022 by Nicole Pottroff

Affiliation is quite possibly one of the scariest words to small business government contractors. And it is easily one of the most misunderstood concepts in SBA’s small business regulations. Perhaps the widespread fear and misunderstanding are due to the fact that there are so many potential bases for affiliation listed in SBA’s rules–or the fact that you can be found affiliated with another company even if SBA finds that none of the listed bases for affiliation are met. Or maybe its the fact that, while affiliation isn’t always a bad thing, it can lead to severe consequences, like preventing an otherwise responsible and eligible business from competing under set-asides contracts.

Either way, this “Back to Basics” blog will be the first of two blogs that will “unpack” this concept for you, hopefully, removing some of the mystery. This first blog will provide a general overview of affiliation and what it means for government contractors, while the second blog will focus on the different types of affiliation.

SmallGovCon Week in Review: July 11-15, 2022

Posted on July 15, 2022 by Shane McCall

Hello, Blog Readers! We hope you had a productive week. Here at SmallGovCon we have been geeking out to the new images from the James Webb Space Telescope. If you haven’t seen the spectacular images, we encourage you to do so! This photo was captured in infrared light and the image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of the universe.

“The Webb team’s incredible success is a reflection of what NASA does best. We take dreams and turn them into reality for the benefit of humanity. I can’t wait to see the discoveries that we uncover – the team is just getting started!”, stated NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. You can find more spectacular images from NASA here.

Transitioning from universal news to federal government contacting news, we have included several articles for your reading pleasure including a report about the False Claims settlement for cybersecurity issues that stemmed from a five-year-old whistleblower lawsuit brought by a former employee of the company. Enjoy the weekend and stay cool out there!