- First, this rule finalizes an
HUBZone Appeals Are Coming May 10!
Section 864 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 authorized the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) to decide all appeals from Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) status protest determinations, which are currently decided by SBA’s associate administrator of Government Contracting and Business Development. The SBA recently
FAR Council Issues Final Rule on Accelerated Payments to Small Businesses
The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council recently published a final rule to implement a policy that provides for accelerated payments to small business prime contractors and small business subcontractors. This noteworthy final rule — which has an effective date of March 16, 2023 — is discussed below.
Background
The Department of Defense (DoD), the General
SBA to Increase Size Standards and Program Thresholds Due to Inflation
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently published a final rule on its 2019 interim final rule that adjusted monetary-based industry size standards (i.e., receipts- and assets based) for inflation which has occurred since 2014. Notably, the SBA’s recent rulemaking also included three important interim final actions.
- First, the SBA added an additional 13.65 percent
SBA Adopts 24-Month Period for Employee-Based Size Determinations
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently issued a final rule adopting a 24-month — as opposed to the current 12-month — average to calculate a business’s number of employees for eligibility purposes in all SBA programs that contain employee-based size standards. SBA’s new rule — which takes effect July 6, 2022 — is discussed
PPP Appeal Process Overview
In 2022, there will inevitably be an uptick in the number of appeals of Small Business Administration (SBA) loan decisions in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) context. This is due simply to the passage of time, to the point where a significant number of PPP recipients have applied for or will be applying for forgiveness
Infrastructure Bill Appropriates Funds to Disadvantaged Business Enterprises
H.R. 3864, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIB), passed a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives on November 5, 2021, and will soon become law upon signing by President Biden. Certain provisions of the Surface Transportation division (Division A) of the BIB will be of particular interest to Disadvantaged
WOSB/EDWOSB Amendments to the FAR Are Here
The Department of Defense (DoD), the General Services Administration (GSA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently proposed a series of noteworthy amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) that impact Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) concerns and Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) concerns. The key proposed amendments to the FAR — which
SBA Issues Annual Small Business Procurement Scorecard
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently issued its annual procurement scorecard showing how well federal agencies fared in Fiscal Year 2019 with respect to their small business and socio-economic prime contracting and subcontracting goals.
Of note, the SBA reports that 26.50% (or $132.9 billion) of the total federal contracting dollars spent by the government
Practical Implications of DoD $100 Million 8(a) Sole-Source Threshold Increase
We recently wrote about the Department of Defense (DoD) amendment to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to increase the threshold for requiring defense contracting agencies to issue sole-source justifications to companies participating in the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 8(a) program. The amendment – DFARS 206.303-1 – increased the DoD threshold from $22 million