A common misconception in government contracting is that to be eligible under a particular solicitation, a small business must have the solicitation’s assigned NAICS code listed under its SBA System for Award Management (“SAM”) profile.
Not so. GAO, in a recent decision, affirmed this misconception to be false—it found that an awardee’s failure to list the assigned NAICS code under its SAM profile did not make its proposal technically unacceptable.
The nonmanufacturer rule will not apply to small business set-aside contracts valued between $3,000 and $150,000, according to the SBA.
In its recent major rulemaking, the SBA exempts these small business set-aside contracts from the nonmanufacturer rule, meaning that small businesses will be able to supply the products of large manufacturers for these contracts without violating the limitations on subcontracting.
The SBA has issued a final rule implementing the changes to the limitations on subcontracting enacted by Congress in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.
The SBA’s final rule takes effect June 30, 2016–and will significantly change the way the limitations on subcontracting are calculated and enforced moving forward.
The SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals is an appellate forum and lacks jurisdiction to hear initial size protests.
As explained in a recent SBA OHA decision, size protests must be filed with the relevant Contracting Officer, who then refers the matter to the appropriate SBA Area Office. Only after the SBA Area Office issues a size determination does OHA have jurisdiction to consider a size appeal.
A NAICS code appeal ordinarily must be filed within ten days of the issuance of a solicitation–and a prospective offeror’s discussions with the Contracting Officer do not extend the deadline.
In a recent NAICS code appeal decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals confirmed that the ten-day clock keeps moving even while a prospective offeror is working behind the scenes in an effort to convince the procuring agency to change the NAICS code.
Federal agencies must classify procurements for supplies under the appropriate manufacturing or supply NAICS code, not under a wholesale trade or retail trade NAICS code.
In a recent NAICS code appeal decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals confirmed that supply procurements should not be classified under wholesale or retail trade NAICS codes–and rejected a prospective offeror’s claim that the agency should have assigned a wholesale trade NAICS code to the solicitation.
Large prime contractors operating under individual subcontracting plans would receive credit for small businesses performing at any subcontracting tier, according to a proposed rule issued yesterday by the SBA.
The proposed rule also requires large primes to assign a NAICS code and size standard to “solicitations” for subcontracts–a notion that may come as a surprise to prime contractors, many of whom do not typically issue formal subcontract solicitations.