By Howard W. Roth on January 8, 2015 | Posted in Small Business
The Veteran’s Administration (VA) administers the “Veterans First” Service-Disabled-Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) verification program. The VA’s program requires companies to apply for verification through the VA’s Center for Verification and Evaluation (CVE) and to re-certify every two years. The CVE’s verification process is challenging and […]
By Oles Morrison on January 7, 2015 | Posted in Procurement Issues
The National Industrial Recovery Act, part of the New Deal policies in 1934, allowed businesses employing individuals with disabilities to pay less than minimum wage to their disabled workers. This “sub-minimum” wage policy was buttressed by the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which allows employers to apply for Section 14(c) […]
By Howard W. Roth on December 19, 2014 | Posted in Legislative and Regulatory Developments
On December 12, 2014, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2015. The $585 billion bill funds the Pentagon’s activities in FY 2015. Within this massive bill, there are number of items of interest to government contractors, including: Design Build Contracting. Section 814 gives contracting officers more authority to […]
By Oles Morrison on December 17, 2014 | Posted in Labor
On December 9, 2014, the U.S Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) published a final rule implementing Executive Order (EO) 13672 effectively amending EO 11246, which previously only prohibited discrimination by federal contractors and subcontractors on the bases of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. […]
By Oles Morrison on December 4, 2014 | Posted in Suspension and Debarment
In the not so very distant past, companies mainly needed to worry about exclusion from public contracting in the United States. However, the exclusion trend has caught on internationally. Recently, Canada has revised their exclusion policies to require companies to certify that neither the company nor its affiliates have committed a […]
By Oles Morrison on November 24, 2014 | Posted in
In most litigation, the plaintiff and the defendant are equally susceptible to being sanctioned by the court for bad or dilatory behavior. However, government contracts litigation is not most litigation. In government contracts litigation (claims or protests), the contractor is more susceptible to being sanctioned than the government. But the government is […]
By Oles Morrison on November 21, 2014 | Posted in
Could a new generation of aircraft carriers change how future conflicts are fought from the sky? The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to find out. This month, DARPA, the agency charged with developing new military technologies for the Department of Defense, issued a Request for Information (RFI) for “Distributed Airborne Capabilities,” or in other words […]
By Oles Morrison on November 19, 2014 | Posted in Bid Protests
Today, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its annual report bid protest report to congress. The report shows a sharp decline in the rate of protests sustained by GAO. For several years the “sustain rate” at GAO had consistently hovered between 16% and 19%. Today’s report shows the “sustain […]
By Oles Morrison on | Posted in Labor
As Congress reconvenes it will consider a new bill that would direct federal agencies to give preferential points in the bidding process to federal government contractors based on their labor practices. The bill, proposed by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), would give points to companies that pay their employees a […]
By Oles Morrison on October 30, 2014 | Posted in Bid Protests
In the world of GAO post-award bid protests, there are certain arguments that are particularly prevalent amongst sustained protests (such as the failure to follow the solicitation evaluation criteria, inadequate documentation of the source selection decision, unequal treatment of offerors, and unreasonable price or cost evaluation), and there are other arguments that while less prevalent […]
By Oles Morrison on October 29, 2014 | Posted in Bid Protests
It is not uncommon for a FAR Part 15 negotiated procurement to include a round of “Oral Presentations” in the proposal/evaluation process. Oral Presentations are permitted by FAR 15.102, and are usually used to augment the agency’s understanding of the written proposal. But at what point does the dialogue between […]
By Oles Morrison on October 28, 2014 | Posted in Labor
This month, the United States Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a Final Rule establishing a minimum wage of $10.10 per hour for certain federal contractors beginning January 1, 2015. The rule implements Executive Order 13658 signed by President Obama earlier this year. The Final Rule applies to: Procurement contracts for […]
By Oles Morrison on October 23, 2014 | Posted in Legislative and Regulatory Developments
Over the past two months the U.S. Small Business Administration (“SBA”) has published two proposed rules to revise small business size standards in the North American Industry Classification System (“NAICS”). If the proposed rules are adopted, nearly 1,650 additional firms will become eligible for small business contracting programs and SBA small business loans. […]
By Oles Morrison on October 7, 2014 | Posted in Bid Protests
In a rare move, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (COFC) imposed sanctions on the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its conduct during the bid protest of Coastal Environmental Group, Inc. v. United States. While the EPA ultimately prevailed on the merits of the protest, the EPA’s conduct was so egregious […]
By Oles Morrison on October 2, 2014 | Posted in Claims and Disputes
When subcontractor claims arise on a federal contract, it is not uncommon for the prime to then assert those claims as pass-through claims against the government. In such circumstances, it is important for subcontractors to remember that while they have rights to proceed against the prime contractor for those claims, […]