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On March 15, 2024, the General Services Administration (GSA) issued Acquisition Letter MV-2024-01 providing guidance to GSA contracting officers on the use of upfront payments for acquisitions of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).  Specifically, this acquisition letter clarifies that despite statutory prohibitions against the use of “advance” payments outside of narrowly-prescribed circumstances, upfront payments for SaaS licenses do not constitute an “advance” payment subject to these restrictions when made under the following conditions:Continue Reading GSA Clarifies Permissibility of Upfront Payments for Software-as-a-Service Offerings

The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series.  All through 2023, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice will keep you up to date with a summary of the most notable bid protest sustain decision each month.  Below, Government Contracts Partner Cherie Owen and Summer Associate Olivia Venus discuss a U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) sustain decision involving the conduct of discussions.

In Life Science Logistics, LLC(“LSL”) GSA sought proposals for services to support disaster relief efforts.  Among other things, proposals were to include blueprint drawings for a proposed warehouse.  After receiving and evaluating initial proposals, GSA conducted discussions with both offerors.  GSA made award to Integrated Quality Solutions LLC (IQS), and LSL protested. 

In response to LSL’s initial protest of the award to IQS, the Agency took voluntary corrective action. It amended the solicitation to specify its blueprint requirements and conducted a reevaluation of each technical proposal. In the initial evaluation, LSL received slightly lower ratings than IQS, but achieved “good” ratings overall. Upon reevaluation, however, the Agency assigned several significant weaknesses to LSL’s technical proposal and assigned a rating of “not acceptable.”  Continue Reading April 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month

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On May 25, 2023, the General Services Administration (GSA) and Small Business Administration (SBA) announced the launch of the 8(a) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Pool Initiative. 

This Initiative advances President Biden’s commitment to equity and, in particular, the administration’s goal to increase contracts to small disadvantaged businesses (SBD).

Under the Initiative, GSA is establishing an 8(a) MAS Pool that will include new and existing MAS 8(a) contractors who are current, active 8(a) Program participants and whose contracts have been accepted into the pool by SBA.  Continue Reading GSA and SBA Move Forward with Plans to Establish an 8(a) MAS Pool in July 2023

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On April 6, 2023, the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals (CBCA), in BES Design/Build, LLC, CBCA 7585, dismissed a contractor’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction, finding the appeal untimely, and underscoring that a contractor cannot reset the 90-day appeal window by resubmitting its original claim.

On February 24, 2021, BES Design/Build, LLC (BES) submitted…

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This week’s episode covers GSA’s Acquisition Guidance for Procuring 5G Technology, implementation of OMB’s memo focusing on “No TikTok on Government Devices,” and an ASBCA matter involving intracompany lease payments, 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…

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On January 23, 2023, in AttainX, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained the protest of an award to an 8(a) joint venture based on, among other reasons, a finding that the agency’s evaluation of the joint venture’s experience was inconsistent with the Small Business Administration (SBA) regulations concerning joint ventures (JVs), citing 13 C.F.R. § 125.8(e) and 13 C.F.R. § 124.513(f).

The protest involved a General Services Administration (GSA) solicitation for IT services to maintain and modernize the USDA Farm Loan Programs systems and applications. The solicitation required offerors to submit a description of their “similar experience” on other contracts. In response, an 8(a) joint venture (MiamiTSPi) submitted two experience examples:

  1. One experience example had been performed by both the 8(a) managing venturer, MTS, and the small business minority venturer, TSPi, but as a different 8(a) certified joint venture, MTSPi LLC. 
  2. The second experience example had been performed by only TSPi, the non-8(a) small business minority venturer. 

GSA evaluated MiamiTSPi as Acceptable under the “similar experience” factor and ultimately made award to MiamiTSPi. Disappointed offeror AttainX protested, arguing, among other things, that even though GSA had only rated MiamiTSPi as Acceptable under “similar experience” as opposed to a higher rating, GSA unreasonably neglected to evaluate the risk associated with the fact that the experience examples submitted by MiamiTSPi were not performed by the joint venture proposed as the prime contractor nor performed individually by the “managing member” of the joint venture.Continue Reading When it Comes to Joint Venture Experience, Perfection May Be Hard to Attain(X)

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This week’s episode covers new guidance from GSA about acquisition of approved software, DOJ’s report of activity under the False Claims Act during FY22, and DoD’s use of innovative commercial products and services using general solicitation competitive procedures, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Yuan Zhou. Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a…

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On December 23, 2022, the Department of Defense (“DoD”), General Services Administration (“GSA”), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) extended the comment period on the proposed rule, “Disclosure of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate-Related Financial Risk,” from January 13, 2023 to February 13, 2023.  As we summarized previously, the proposed rule would, if…

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On October 4, 2022, the General Services Administration (“GSA”) published a Request for Information (“RFI”), seeking information “about the availability of domestically manufactured, locally sourced low-carbon construction materials” for governmentwide construction procurement.  Significantly, the results of the RFI are expected to help inform how the GSA will spend the $2.15 billion appropriated through Section 60503…

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Not to be outdone by the Department of Defense’s commitment to consider inflation relief, on September 12, 2022, the General Services Administration (“GSA”) Federal Acquisition Service published a Supplement to Acquisition Letter MV-22-02, extending and enhancing policies to provide inflation relief to GSA Schedule contractors.  As we previously explained, the original Acquisition Letter relaxed…