GAO Confirms that Novations Work: Agency Properly Recognized Buyer of Contract as Awardee

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The Anti-Assignment Act (41 U.S.C. § 6305) prohibits the transfer of a government contract or interest in a government contract to a third party. However, government agencies recognized that contractors are on occasion bought, sold, merged, or simply encounter circumstances upon which it becomes desirable or necessary for them to assign a government contract to a third party.  

To address this issue, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provides for a novation process to give contractors a method to transfer government contracts and not run afoul of the prohibitions in the Anti-Assignment Act. The ultimate goal of the novation process is to successfully transfer the contract and have the government recognize a new contractor as the successor-in-interest to the transferred contract.

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Agency Properly Rejected Bidder for Listing COVID-19 as a “Force Majeure” Event

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For government contractors, trying to predict how COVID-19 might affect a government project can be extraordinarily challenging task. One bidder recently attempted to provide some clarity by stating, in its bid, that COVID-19 was a “force majeure event” and that the bidder would be entitled to extra time if COVID-19 affected the project.

Unfortunately for the bidder, its effort failed: the agency rejected the bid for improperly exceeding the scope of a relevant FAR clause. The GAO then confirmed that the agency had acted properly.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: December 6-10, 2021

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Good day, Readers! The holidays are quickly approaching and everything is looking festive and bright here in Lawrence, Kansas. The annual tradition of Santa being recued from the roof of one of our local department stores occurred and you will be happy to know that he is safe to circle the globe once again this Christmas. You can see photos of this fun, annual tradition here. It’s always quite a spectacle!

As always, there was a lot happening in the world of federal government contracting this week. The biggest news being that a federal judge has temporarily halted the vaccine mandate for federal government contractors. You can read more about this latest development and some interesting statistics that were issued on federal government contracting, along with other announcements in the articles below, as well as our blog post.

Have a great weekend!

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Event: 8(a) Joint Ventures Webinar, Hosted by El Paso SBA

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Koprince McCall Pottroff LLC will be presenting a webinar hosted by the El Paso SBA that covers an important topic in federal government contracting – 8(a) Joint Ventures.

In this webinar, government contracts attorneys Shane McCall and John Holtz cover the basics of joint ventures, the specifics of 8(a) joint ventures (including SBA requirements), and how the mentor-protégé program can benefit a joint venture arrangement.

If you’d like to join us for the webinar, mark the date of December 16 on your calendar and here is the link for the event.

GAO Finds CIO-SP4 Unduly Restrictive; Recommends Amendment

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For practically the entire summer of 2021, we observed (and commented on) NIH’s numerous amendments to its long-awaited CIO-SP4 solicitation after it was finally issued in May 2021. By the time the deadline for proposals finally came, it had been amended eleven (!) times. Even with all those amendments, however, it appears that at least one offeror still had serious concerns about the final version. As it turns out, at least some of their concerns were warranted, per GAO, and has recommended the agency to amend the solicitation or revise its evaluation criteria.

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