I was enjoying a day off last Friday, so we have a lot of catching up to do on government contracting news and notes.  It’s time for a special two-week super-sized edition of the SmallGovCon Week in Review.

In this edition, the GAO looks at NASA’s investigations of contractor whistleblowing complaints, the SBA announces nine new Women’s Business Centers, the Coast Guard sinks $60 million into an electronic health record system procurement with nothing to show for it,  70,000 contractors must provide notarized letters in the wake of a “SAM scam” and much more.

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Winter refuses to end here in Lawrence, Kansas as snow is in the forecast tonight.  But before we settle in for a cold weekend, it’s time for the SmallGovCon Week in Review.

In this week’s edition, how the DoD will collect data to help reduce time for awards,  two construction companies have agreed to pay $1.2 million to resolve whistleblower claims related to set-aside contracts, the GSA and OMB move forward with the e-commerce initiative established in the 2018 NDAA and much more.

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It’s moving day at Koprince Law LLC. We are in the midst of moving into our new digs at 901 Kentucky Street, Suite 301 here in Lawrence. Our new office has a lot more space to support our growing firm, and is just a two-block walk to Chipotle. I call that a win-win.

While we get the new space ready for Monday morning, it’s time for the SmallGovCon Week in Review. In this week’s edition, the GSA’s Inspector General is investigating fraudulent activity on SAM, Bloomberg Government expects the number of mergers and acquisitions in the federal contracting market to decrease in 2018, a mother and daughter plead guilty to bribing employees of the Picatinny Arsenal military base for 12 years with luxury items valued at $250,000, and much more.

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What a week of college basketball!  I don’t think anyone could have predicted a world in which UMBC knocked out Virginia and Loyola-Chicago is knocking on the door of the Final Four, but that’s where we are.  Tonight, both of my teams–Duke and KU–are playing, so I’ll be spending my Friday evening watching some hoops.

But before March Madness kicks off, it’s time for the SmallGovCon Week in Review. In this week’s edition, the GSA and OMB are seeking legislative fixes as they move forward with the “Amazon Amendment,” protests against the major ENCORE III contract have been denied, a contractor admits to a bribery and gratuity scheme, and much more.

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This is a month my office (which represents several different teams) gets excited for. The first week of March Madness is here, which means you may have found yourself being less productive than usual–don’t worry, that’s expected! But even during a time as captivating as the NCAA tournament, the world of government contracting doesn’t slow down.

In this week’s edition of the SmallGovCon Week in Review, a communications company has agreed to pay over $12 million to settle civil False Claims Act allegations, antitrust critics fear that a winner-take-all contract for the Defense Department’s cloud computing could help tech giant Amazon corner the government contract market, a construction company lost $40 million in four years in a scheme to illegitimately gain government contracts, and much more.

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I am back in Kansas after spending some time in sunny Florida for the APTAC Spring 2018 Training Conference in Jacksonville. Next week, I hit the road again, this time to not-so-sunny (but still awesome) Washington State, where I’ll be giving a session at the 2018 Alliance Northwest Conference in Puyallup, WA.  If you are attending the event, please be sure to connect.

Now it’s time for the latest and greatest in government contracting.  In today’s edition of the SmallGovCon Week in Review, the Pentagon has reportedly slashed a contract worth almost $1 billion that was awarded last month, a former contractor has been convicted of retaining classified information, the DOJ launches a national FOIA portal, and much more.

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March has arrived, and soon it will be time for all the March Madness fun.  But first, I will be heading to sunny Florida for the APTAC Spring 2018 Training Conference on Monday.  If you’re a PTAC counselor, I hope to see you there.

In today’s edition of the SmallGovCon Week in Review, an Atlanta-based company that failed to deliver millions of emergency meals to Puerto Ricans struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria may have plagiarized its winning bid, a former quality-control officer who demanded kickbacks from construction businesses he monitored is going to prison, Guy Timberlake takes a look at the use of Product Service codes, and much more.

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