YouTube Tuesday: Why Should You File Bid Protests at GAO?

We here at Koprince Law have been seeing a lot of GAO bid protests lately, but for those of you unfamiliar with the Government Accountability Office and what it means to file a bid protest, this video is for you:

For more information, or if you need assistance filing your GAO protest, learn more about how we can help here.

Looking for the latest government contracting legal news? Sign up here for our free monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

SBA OHA confirms 3-year look-back period for economic dependence affiliation

Under the SBA’s regulations, affiliation between two companies might exist where one company derives 70% or more of its receipts from the other over the preceding three fiscal years. See 13 C.F.R. § 121.103(f)(2).

This economic dependence affiliation, as it is called, can be tricky to identify in practice—it is, after all, a rebuttable presumption of affiliation. That is, a company might be able to demonstrate that economic dependence doesn’t exist if, for example, it has only been in business for a limited amount of time and has only been awarded a limited number of contracts.

Recently, the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals considered the bounds of the economic dependence affiliation rule and interpreted the three-year look-back period.

Continue reading

Raising the Roofs . . . and Floors: Acquisition Thresholds in the Time of Emergency

As many contractors have heard, the President declared a state of emergency under the Stafford Act. What will this mean for acquisitions conducted while the COVID-19 emergency continues?

In this post, I’ll dig into some contractor-specific effects of that declaration: modifying the micro-purchase, simplified acquisition, and commercial purchase acquisition thresholds.

Continue reading

Thanks to the Missouri Procurement Conference 2019!

I recently returned from the Procurement Conference 2019 featuring Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler in Warrensburg, Mo. It was a great experience! The remarks of the Congresswoman, as well as those of keynote speaker the Hon. Alan Shaffer, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Acquisition & Sustainment.

One theme they both touched on was that the Department of Defense is looking for great ideas from contractors and wants to pay well for those innovative ideas. That’s good news for federal contractors!

Thanks to all who organized the event, especially Bill Stuby with Missouri PTAC. I was able to provide an update on current issues in government contracting to a lively audience. And thanks to all who stopped by our booth to chat!