SBA Takes Action Following OIG Investigation of Suspension and Debarment Process

On September 18, 2019, SBA’s Office of Inspector General released an Audit Report summarizing a recent audit of SBA’s Suspension and Debarment Process. The purpose of the audit was to determine whether SBA “had sufficient controls in place to prevent suspended or debarred entities from receiving federal contracts through SBA’s preference contracting programs and small business loans.”

Through its investigation, OIG discovered SBA lent and awarded millions of dollars to businesses otherwise ineligible to receive these funds under SBA’s suspension and debarment guidelines. While SBA disagreed with some of OIG’s findings, SBA did agree to take some steps to address OIG’s findings and recommendations.

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GAO Report Shines Light On Contractors with Delinquent Taxes

For most Americans, tax season is happily behind them and Memorial Day festivities signaled the start of summer. A recent GAO report, however, may give cause for some federal contractors to revisit their tax policies before lighting up the grill next weekend.

Contracting Officers are required to take in a wealth of information prior to awarding a contract. One piece of information each contracting officer is supposed to review is the tax status of offerors. If an offeror is delinquent in paying taxes, the contracting officer has several subsequent review steps to take. But contracting officers do not not always conduct this review, so Congress asked GAO to review the impact of these missing steps.

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SmallGovCon Weeks In Review: December 26, 2016 – January 6, 2017

Happy New Year and welcome back to the SmallGovCon Week In Review. I hope that everyone had an enjoyable holiday season and is jumping full force into 2017. We bring you a double edition today, as we took a little time off from delivering you our weekly publication last week.

It may have been the holiday season, but it was still a busy two weeks of developments in the world of federal government contracting. In this week’s edition, the President has signed the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (click here for SmallGovCon‘s complete 2017 NDAA coverage), alleged procurement fraud results in a whopping $4.5 million settlement, President-elect Trump’s administration may prioritize Buy American policies, Guy Timberlake takes a look at how FY 2016 contracting dollars were obligated, and much more.

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SmallGovCon Week In Review June 20-24, 2016

It’s hard to top last week’s government contracting news, which included the major SDVOSB Supreme Court victory in Kingdomware.  But with the Fourth of July just a week and a half away, there is still plenty going on in the world of government contracts law.

In this week’s SmallGovCon Week in Review, an SDVOSB’s owner speaks out about his important GAO bid protest win, suspensions and debarments of government contractors dropped in 2015, major changes are coming to the GSA Schedule, HUBZone contract awards decline, and much more.

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GAO Doubles Down On FedBid/COC Ruling

The GAO has sustained a second protest based upon FedBid’s suspension of a contractor from its system.

For the second time in less than one week, the GAO held that the contractor’s suspension from FedBid–and resulting inability to bid on a contract–was improper because the matter was not referred to the SBA under the SBA’s Certificate of Competency procedures.

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SDVOSB Fraud: Guilty Plea In “Rent-A-Vet” Case

A Nebraska man has pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges stemming from a SDVOSB “rent-a-vet” scheme under which an ineligible business received 45 SDVOSB contracts.

According to a Department of Justice press release, the man faces up to 24 months in prison and financial penalties.  He and his companies also have been suspended from government contracting and face the likelihood of debarment.

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GAO Lacks Jurisdiction Over Debarment Disputes

The GAO lacks jurisdiction to decide whether an agency improperly suspended or debarred a contractor from federal government contracting.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO dismissed a protest filed by a debarred contractor, holding that the protester’s underlying challenge to its debarment was a matter for resolution by the contracting agency, not the GAO.

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