Government Contracts

The best way a non-8(a) government contractor can get 8(a) work is to become part of an 8(a) Joint Venture (JV). But the admission ticket to this unique opportunity has a price: the 8(a) JV must provide “substantial benefit” to the 8(a). This means that the JV – particularly the…

As expected, the new government cyber requirements have become weapons for protests. It’s important for government contractors to see how GAO will handle these issues. In a recent GAO protest, a NOAA RFQ required that an offeror provide documentation that showed it had an awareness and capability for meeting the…

On June 13, 2018, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a notification containing a warning that Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors have targeted Cleared Defense Contractors (CDC) for attack in the near future. APT actors attempt to infiltrate contractor network systems with phishing messages, watering hole redirects and…

A contractor who waited nearly a year to protest an agency’s decision to follow the GAO’s recommendation to reevaluate proposals and make a new award decision had its protest denied as untimely by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims under the rarely-invoked doctrine of laches. This long and tortured U.S.

A recent decision of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a good lesson for ways contractors can successfully, and unsuccessfully, deal with organizational conflicts of interest (OCI). ARES Technical Services Corporation protested a NASA award to Millennium Engineering and Integration Company (MEI), claiming that NASA did not mitigate an OCI…

On April 2, 2018, DoD issued an extensive new set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding implementation of the DFARs Cybersecurity Clause (252.204-7012), NIST 800-171 and the Cloud Computing Clauses (252.229-7009 & -7010), which shed considerable light on what the Department expects and will expect from these contractors. Over…

Bidders don’t often consider that information they learn through discussions could trigger the need to file a pre-award protest, even when that information is not included in a solicitation amendment. If an agency communication conflicts with the solicitation’s terms, a bidder must protest this ambiguity before closing time for proposals.

With security clearances being such an important requirement of winning a Defense Department contract, contractors need to know some unique protest rules dealing with a contracting officer’s “responsibility” determinations. An Army solicitation required the winning contractor’s employees to “have and maintain a current SECRET clearance prior to and during employment,”…

GAO recently dismissed an unsuccessful bidder’s protest, finding that the protestor had effectively abandoned its protest when it failed to provide a substantive response to the agency’s report. Yang Enterprises, Inc. protested the award of an Air Force contract for launch operations and infrastructure support at Cape Canaveral, Florida to…