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Offerors must be alert to the possibility of technology difficulties when electronically submitting a proposal for a federal procurement as the general rule regarding proposal submissions is that “late is late.”  GAO has heard countless cases in which proposal submission via email has presented complications.  Proposal submission via government portals has presented similar problems for offerors.

Recently, in People, Technology and Processes, LLC, B-419385, B-419385.2, Feb. 2, 2021, GAO heard a challenge to GSA’s rejection of a proposal from consideration for an order under OASIS.  The offeror, People, Technology and Processes or PTP, experienced technical difficulties while trying to submit the proposal via the GSA ASSIST online portal.  Although PTP was unable to submit its proposal, no systemic issues were reported with the portal and GSA timely received six proposals from other offerors.…
Continue Reading Lessons Learned at GAO from Technical Difficulties Experienced While Submitting a Proposal on GSA’s ASSIST Portal

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has added emergency loans for small businesses to its list of government programs vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. On March 2, 2021, GAO released its latest High Risk List identifying troubled federal government programs in need of significant improvement. The GAO concluded that the Small Business Administration (SBA) must demonstrate more robust integrity controls and better management practices over the PPP and EIDL programs. GAO’s findings put pressure on the SBA to ensure quicker adoption of GAO’s recommendations for improvements and keeps public focus on the need for SBA audits and investigations of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program participants.…
Continue Reading GAO’s High Risk List Puts Spotlight on Emergency Loans For Small Businesses, Reinforcing Audit and Investigation Risk for PPP and EIDL Program Participants

In this episode, hosts Rob Sneckenberg and Olivia Lynch are joined by colleague Amy O’Sullivan to discuss the Court of Federal Claims’ recent decision in HWI Gear, Inc., which held that the solicitation’s inclusion in full of the text of FAR 52.219-28 required a small business offeror to recertify its size status prior to award…

On February 25, 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois announced a settlement to resolve allegations that a contractor that was not an eligible participant in the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program violated the False Claims Act by controlling a joint venture that claimed 8(a) status and won an…

In a previous blog post, we covered the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) consolidation of the 8(a) Business Development (BD) Mentor-Protégé Program and the All Small Mentor-Protégé Program.  Beyond consolidating the programs, SBA also made a host of additional changes to the 8(a) Program, almost all of which took effect on November 16, 2020.  As…

As we’ve stressed about the mentor-protégé program, the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) primary concern is that the program benefits the small business protégés.

Past performance is a particularly delicate topic for small businesses, presenting something of a what-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg question.  Past performance is not strictly required in order to win prime federal contracts, and its weighting…

In the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) October 2019 Final Rule covering Consolidation of Mentor-Protégé Programs and Other Government Contracting Amendments, SBA also included modification to two of the affiliation tests under 13 C.F.R. § 121.103.

(Note, SBA made a number of other changes to 13 C.F.R. § 121.103 focused on the joint venture affiliation test.)…

On October 16, 2020, the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) issued a final rule enacting a number of now-effective changes to SBA’s regulations, including changes to the rules governing size recertifications on unrestricted multiple award contracts (“MACs”).

The final rule requires contractors to certify their size and socioeconomic status at the time of initial offer for…

On January 13, 2021, the Small Business Administration issued an interim final rule to implement the one-year extension of 8(a) Business Development status provided for in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 and in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (which we previously discussed here).

The rule contains crucial information on implementation…

On December 11, 2020, Congress presented to President Trump H.R. 6395, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. On December 23, 2020, President Trump vetoed the bill. Subsequently, the House voted on December 28, 2020 and the Senate voted on January 1, 2021 to override the veto.

This Act contains numerous provisions that…