As we recently discussed, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has published a long-awaited rule that made important changes to numerous small business contracting programs and the rules Federal agencies must follow...more
The Small Business Administration (SBA) today issued a significant final rule addressing numerous issues of interest to Federal contractors. With one exception, the rule will take effect on November 16, 2020. We anticipate...more
In this month’s bid protest roundup (featured on Law360), we consider three protest decisions the GAO released in the month of July, each of which provides important guidance for companies competing for government...more
Neither rain nor sleet nor quarantine restrictions stop bid protests or our monthly roundup. Thus far the virus has not resulted in dramatic changes to GAO processes, as they have been almost completely electronic from the...more
A variety of arcane domestic-preference regimes apply to many Federal procurements – the Buy American Act (BAA), the Trade Agreements Act (TAA), the Berry Amendment, and the Cargo Preference Act, to name a few. In Acetris...more
The Court of Federal Claims recently affirmed its jurisdiction to settle disputes over protective markings in Raytheon Co. v. United States. In that case, Raytheon asked the Court to review a contracting officer’s demand that...more
Everyone knows that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” But what about ignorance of the facts? In Woodies Holdings, L.L.C. v. United States, the Court of Federal Claims recently rejected a Government defense against a...more
In the National Defense Authorization Acts for 2017 and 2018, Congress required the Department of Defense (DOD) to implement certain reforms for issuing and definitizing Undefinitized Contract Actions (UCAs). After a long...more
This month’s selection of bid protests includes discussion of: (1) a successful challenge to a subcontracting restriction in the General Services Administration’s One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS)...more
Kenny Rogers once offered some sage advice that’s as applicable to Government contractors as it is to gamblers and human beings in general...more
In response to President Trump’s Executive Order to reduce regulatory burdens and control regulatory costs, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has proposed a rule to amend its regulations for the Historically...more
To be clear, the bondage here is the bond requirement under Federal construction contracts, and the doctrine does not appear in the catechism but in the Court of Claims’ old decision in G. L. Christian & Associates v. United...more
As a general rule, when a contractor signs a full settlement and release with respect to a dispute with the Government, the dispute is considered settled, and the Government is released from any further liability for that...more
Businesses hoping to win a government contract must be familiar and comply with a host of complex timeliness rules, from the deadlines for submitting proposals and revisions, to the rules for protesting a potentially improper...more
Offerors should, and generally do, carefully guard the confidentiality of their bid and proposal information. And agencies that receive that information generally are careful to prevent its improper release, much as they...more
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) will cut the ribbon on its Electronic Protest Docketing System (EPDS) on May 1, 2018, according to a final rule published Monday (at 83 Fed. Reg. 13817). The electronic filing...more
In this roundup of interesting U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) protests released in February, we look at (1) the effect of agency-level protests on GAO protest deadlines; (2) the fairly high bar for winning a...more
As we discussed in an earlier post about the NDAA for FY 2018, one of the most significant changes with respect to procurement issues may be related to the DOD’s conduct of debriefings. Perhaps missed in the discussions of a...more
The Government “can engage a contractor to make snowmen in August, if [it spells] it out clearly [in a contract].” Rixon Electronics, Inc. v. United States, 536 F.2d 1345, 1351 (Ct. Cl. 1976). And the contractor generally...more
In a recent Protest Roundup, we discussed Dell Federal Systems, LP v. United States, 2017 WL 2981811 (Fed. Cl. July 3, 2017), a case in which a contractor successfully challenged the scope of the voluntary corrective action...more
A few years back, a string of decisions at the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals and the Court of Federal Claims invoked the Contract Disputes Act’s six-year statute of limitations to dispose of several long-pending...more