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On September 21, 2026, the Small Business Administration announced an extension of the comment period for two previously proposed rules that, as currently constructed, would significantly expand the pool of entities eligible to qualify for small business set-aside procurements. The extension is slated to be formally published on September 24, 2026.  While the comment period was originally to close on September 21, in response to requests for additional time, SBA has extended the comment period for an additional 60 days with comments now due by November 20, 2026.

As previously discussed (in an alert and webinar), SBA proposed on August 20, 2026, to revise its methodology for establishing size standards while at the same time proposing how SBA’s size standard table would be impacted if that new methodology were adopted. The most immediately impactful changes would be material increases to a substantial number of size standards — with some thresholds proposed to increase as much as tenfold — which would significantly alter the makeup of the small business contractor base. 

SBA has already received nearly 70,000 written comments on the two rulemakings, in addition to holding a public forum.

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In recent years, the U.S. federal government has taken significant interest in the cybersecurity compliance of its contractor base. In 2025 alone, the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative recovered more than $50 million across nine False Claims Act (FCA) cybersecurity fraud settlements, and it has secured almost 20 settlements since its launch in October 2021. Because most defendants facing FCA liability for alleged cybersecurity noncompliance enter into pre-litigation settlements, the last court decision in a cybersecurity FCA case was in 2022. However, earlier this month, on September 2, 2026, in  United States ex rel. Pannek v. Archer Daniels Midland Co., No. 23-cv-15145, 2026 WL 2593317 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 2, 2026), Judge Sunil R. Harjani of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted a motion to dismiss on materiality grounds and offered additional guidance on what a plaintiff must allege to adequately state an FCA cybersecurity claim.

Continue Reading In a First, District Court Dismisses FCA Cybersecurity Complaint for Lack of Materiality
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The General Services Administration (GSA) has begun sending out email notifications of a “known glitch” affecting certain System for Award Management (SAM) registrations as far back as spring 2026.

Continue Reading GSA Issues Notice of “Glitch” and Recommends Contractors Validate Small Business Status Representations on SAM.gov 
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In Aim for AdVantage, LLC, GAO dismissed a protest as a sanction after finding that the protester had materially misrepresented the facts underlying its challenge to the rejection of its proposal. The protester claimed it had spent two hours trying to submit its proposal through the agency’s digital portal before the deadline, only to be thwarted by undisclosed system limitations.  But a forensic review of the protester’s account activity told a very different story – one in which the protester had not even attempted to access the portal until nearly an hour after the deadline had passed. GAO’s decision to dismiss the protest as a sanction for these misrepresentations serves as a stark warning: fabricating facts in a GAO protest may result in serious consequences.

Continue Reading Lying Gets You Nowhere: GAO Dismisses Protest Built on Fabricated Facts
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The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recent decision in Viderity Inc.—Costs, B-424422.5, Sept. 1, 2026, offers useful insight into what constitutes a legally sufficient conflict of interest investigation. The decision arose in an unusual procedural posture: Viderity initially protested, alleging that an agency evaluator had a personal conflict of interest. After the agency took corrective action, Viderity filed a cost entitlement claim requesting that GAO direct the agency to reimburse Viderity’s protest costs. In evaluating that claim, GAO assessed whether Viderity’s underlying protest ground was “clearly meritorious.”

Continue Reading GAO Indicates Reasonable Conflict of Interest Investigation Must Include Inquiry of Involved Firm
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Focus on Congressional Investigations

This is a special edition focusing on congressional investigations and the risk for government contractors in today’s environment, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Jamie Bair. Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without.Listen: Crowell.com | PodBean | SoundCloud | Apple Podcasts

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On September 2, 2026, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), through its Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), released two new Notices on the topic of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI): ISOO Notices 2026-07 and 2026-08. 

Continue Reading New ISOO Guidance Directs Federal Agencies to Provide More CUI Guidance to Contractors
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The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice keeps you up to date with a summary of one of the most notable bid protest sustain decisions each month. Below, Crowell Consultant (and former GAO Bid Protest Hearing Officer) Cherie Owen discusses GAO’s decision in LJR Solutions, LLC, B-424487, Aug. 14, 2026, where GAO sustained a small business’s challenge to the National Institutes of Health’s decision not to set aside a procurement for small business concerns.

Continue Reading August 2026 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month: Agency’s Rule of Two Set-Aside Determination Failed on Multiple Fronts
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Cost & Pricing, Procurement Fraud, Small Business

This week’s episode covers a Pentagon directive on supplier cost and pricing, GSA’s announcement about suspected procurement fraud, a federal court ruling in the Anthropic case, a new class deviation overhauling Cost Accounting Standards thresholds, and SBA’s proposed restructuring of small business size standards, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Yuan Zhou. Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without.

Click below to listen or access from one of these links:

PodBean | SoundCloud | Apple Podcasts

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The “too close at hand” principle allows GAO or the court to find an evaluation unreasonable where an agency fails to consider past performance information it was aware of – even if that information was not in the offeror’s proposal.  The principle originates from GAO’s 1997 decision in International Business Systems, Inc., where GAO sustained a protest after finding that an agency unreasonably failed to consider past performance information that “involved the same agency, the same contracting officer, and virtually the same services” as the procurement at issue.  GAO held that “some information is simply too close at hand to require offerors to shoulder the inequities that spring from an agency’s failure to obtain, and consider, the information.”  Since that decision, the argument has become a common tool in protesters’ challenges to past performance evaluations, though as discussed in “Bid Protest Pitfalls: Three Commonly Misused Arguments at GAO,” the argument is frequently misused by protesters unfamiliar with GAO’s precedent on the issue.

Continue Reading Recent Court Decision Indicates the “Close at Hand” Doctrine is Alive and Well