March 22, 2018
Hopewell Darneille, of the Firm's Washington, DC office, will be a presenter at the annual Dynamic Networking for Small Business (DYNET) Conference, a federal and prime contracting event in Fairmont, West Virginia, on April 5, 2018 at the Robert H. Mollohan Research Center.
Mr. Darneille will co-present a workshop on "SBA's 2016 Joint Venture Rules Revisited," with Melissa Loder, the…
January 18, 2018
While an agency’s failure to follow the terms of the solicitation stands as one of several basics grounds for a successful protest, such deviations are not always easy to spot. Often they do not become evident until the protest is well under way. The decision in the recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) case of East Coast Utility Contractors, Ltd., B-415493, B-415493.2 (January 16, 2018)…
January 10, 2018
Faithful readers of the Government Contracts Monitor have been repeatedly reminded of an offeror’s responsibility to submit a well-written quotation clearly demonstrating its ability to comply with the solicitation’s requirements. (Here, for example.) Unfortunately, protesters continue to lose protests because of the failure to submit adequate offers. The recent Government Accountability Office…
January 3, 2018
Reassess Your Size Status, Update Your DSBS and SAM Listings, Check Your Past Performance Ratings, and Update Your Employment Policies, Handbooks and Postings
Happy New Year! The start of a new year is the time for New Year’s Resolutions. Here are several we strongly urge you to follow-through on early in 2018.
1. Reassess Your (and Any Subcontractors’) Small Business Size Status: Most companies…
October 26, 2017
For the past seven years or so, procuring agencies within the Department of Defense (DoD) have been precluded from expending funds on contracts in excess of $1 million unless the contractor agrees not to require its employees to agree to binding arbitration as a condition of employment. To the extent that anyone is still clinging to the notion that the prohibition was toothless and essentially…
October 19, 2017
When preparing proposals and responding to discussion questions, offerors sometimes unconsciously respond to solicitation requirements and agency comments from a normative perspective, providing the information they believe “makes sense” rather than the information the agency has actually requested. It seems that this dynamic may have contributed to the circumstances considered by the Government…
September 26, 2017
DFARS Clause 252.204-7012, Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting, was added in 2016. It requires contractors to safeguard covered defense information that is processed or stored on their internal information system or network by implementing National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-171, "Protecting Controlled Unclassified…
September 7, 2017
Sometimes small business offeror’s lack of success in a competitive procurement results from questions about whether it is “responsible” (i.e. has the ability to perform). When a small business’ proposal is found unacceptable due to a responsibility-related issue, the procuring agency must refer the matter to the Small Business Administration (SBA), which has the ultimate authority to determine…
June 27, 2017
Effective communication of all sorts requires attention to detail, accuracy, and clarity. Simply put, words matter. In many contexts, numbers matter too. And while some circumstances may call for the use of generalization, puffery or creative ambiguity, proposal preparation calls for a more straightforward approach. As the recent Government Accounting Office (GAO) decision in AdvanceMed…
May 31, 2017
In the 1967 film, Cool Hand Luke, the Captain famously says to the inmates, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” All too often, the same could be said to describe the issue at the core of protest decisions. A common theme running through many such decisions is a lack of effective communication that leads to poor ratings that in turn sink proposals. The recent Government Accounting…
May 9, 2017
The Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s recent decision in Competitive Range Solutions, LLC, B-413104.10, Apr. 18, 2017, provides a valuable reminder that Certificate of Competency (COC) referrals to the Small Business Administration (SBA) are required in broader contexts than pure non-responsibility determinations. Specifically, SBA’s regulations provide, inter alia, that a contracting…
April 11, 2017
Bid protestors frequently complain that an agency improperly converted a “best value” procurement into a Low Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) procurement by awarding to the low-priced offeror, notwithstanding the existence of higher-rated, albeit higher-priced, proposals. Such protests seldom prevail, due to the wide discretion afforded source selection officials to select a lower-priced,…
March 22, 2018
Hopewell Darneille, of the Firm's Washington, DC office, will be a presenter at the annual Dynamic Networking for Small Business (DYNET) Conference, a federal and prime contracting event in Fairmont, West Virginia, on April 5, 2018 at the Robert H. Mollohan Research Center.
Mr. Darneille will co-present a workshop on "SBA's 2016 Joint Venture Rules Revisited," with Melissa Loder, the…
January 18, 2018
While an agency’s failure to follow the terms of the solicitation stands as one of several basics grounds for a successful protest, such deviations are not always easy to spot. Often they do not become evident until the protest is well under way. The decision in the recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) case of East Coast Utility Contractors, Ltd., B-415493, B-415493.2 (January 16, 2018)…
January 10, 2018
Faithful readers of the Government Contracts Monitor have been repeatedly reminded of an offeror’s responsibility to submit a well-written quotation clearly demonstrating its ability to comply with the solicitation’s requirements. (Here, for example.) Unfortunately, protesters continue to lose protests because of the failure to submit adequate offers. The recent Government Accountability Office…
January 3, 2018
Reassess Your Size Status, Update Your DSBS and SAM Listings, Check Your Past Performance Ratings, and Update Your Employment Policies, Handbooks and Postings
Happy New Year! The start of a new year is the time for New Year’s Resolutions. Here are several we strongly urge you to follow-through on early in 2018.
1. Reassess Your (and Any Subcontractors’) Small Business Size Status: Most companies…
October 26, 2017
For the past seven years or so, procuring agencies within the Department of Defense (DoD) have been precluded from expending funds on contracts in excess of $1 million unless the contractor agrees not to require its employees to agree to binding arbitration as a condition of employment. To the extent that anyone is still clinging to the notion that the prohibition was toothless and essentially…
October 19, 2017
When preparing proposals and responding to discussion questions, offerors sometimes unconsciously respond to solicitation requirements and agency comments from a normative perspective, providing the information they believe “makes sense” rather than the information the agency has actually requested. It seems that this dynamic may have contributed to the circumstances considered by the Government…
September 26, 2017
DFARS Clause 252.204-7012, Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting, was added in 2016. It requires contractors to safeguard covered defense information that is processed or stored on their internal information system or network by implementing National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-171, "Protecting Controlled Unclassified…
September 7, 2017
Sometimes small business offeror’s lack of success in a competitive procurement results from questions about whether it is “responsible” (i.e. has the ability to perform). When a small business’ proposal is found unacceptable due to a responsibility-related issue, the procuring agency must refer the matter to the Small Business Administration (SBA), which has the ultimate authority to determine…
June 27, 2017
Effective communication of all sorts requires attention to detail, accuracy, and clarity. Simply put, words matter. In many contexts, numbers matter too. And while some circumstances may call for the use of generalization, puffery or creative ambiguity, proposal preparation calls for a more straightforward approach. As the recent Government Accounting Office (GAO) decision in AdvanceMed…
May 31, 2017
In the 1967 film, Cool Hand Luke, the Captain famously says to the inmates, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” All too often, the same could be said to describe the issue at the core of protest decisions. A common theme running through many such decisions is a lack of effective communication that leads to poor ratings that in turn sink proposals. The recent Government Accounting…
May 9, 2017
The Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s recent decision in Competitive Range Solutions, LLC, B-413104.10, Apr. 18, 2017, provides a valuable reminder that Certificate of Competency (COC) referrals to the Small Business Administration (SBA) are required in broader contexts than pure non-responsibility determinations. Specifically, SBA’s regulations provide, inter alia, that a contracting…
April 11, 2017
Bid protestors frequently complain that an agency improperly converted a “best value” procurement into a Low Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) procurement by awarding to the low-priced offeror, notwithstanding the existence of higher-rated, albeit higher-priced, proposals. Such protests seldom prevail, due to the wide discretion afforded source selection officials to select a lower-priced,…
