SmallGovCon
Small business federal contracting commentary.
SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 27-31, 2025
It’s Friday and time for another week in review, on this last day of January. We are so excited that our Kansas City Chiefs will be playing, once again, in the Super Bowl. We’re looking forward to the championship game against an impressive Philadelphia Eagles team, and a chance
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 31, 2025
Webinar Event! Top 21 Legal Mistakes in Federal Government Contracting, February 13, 2025, 12:00pm-1:30pm CST
Federal contracting rules and laws are complicated, and the rules aren’t always intuitive. Many contractors make legal mistakes routinely, involving everything from completing SAM profiles to calculating small business size to communicating with government contracting officers. F
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 31, 2025
Making Unsuccessful Protesters Pay? Enhanced Pleading Standards? A Look at Proposed Changes to GAO Protest Rules Under the 2025 NDAA
Back in 2017, in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress passed a limited program for GAO protests of Department of Defense contracts where certain large contractors would have to reimburse the DoD for the cost of processing unsuccessful GAO protests. We revi
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 29, 2025
DoD, GSA, and NASA Establish New Size and Status Rerepresentation Rules
The FAR Council recently published a final rule dealing with small business certification issues, effective on January 17, 2025. SBA had updated its recertification rules as discussed in this SmallGovCon.com blog. This final rule came about to ensure that certain parts of the FAR
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 28, 2025
SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 20-24, 2025
Happy Friday, Readers! We hope you had a great week and are ready for the weekend. We are looking forward to our weather finally warming up and melting off some of this snow in the next few days. The respite from the very cold temperatures will be a nice change. Have a good weeke
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 24, 2025
GAO Says: Solicitation + Q&A = Material Requirements
Recently, GAO sustained a bid protest, finding that the awardee did not meet the material requirements of the solicitation. The GAO held that the requirements of the solicitation included an agency’s answer during the question and answer (Q&A) period. In ATP Gov, LLC, the United
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 22, 2025
Why File: A GAO Bid Protest Intervention
When contractors think of GAO Bid Protests, most think of the process from the perspective of the protester. However, the contract awardee is not without a voice in the bid protest process at GAO. While the agency will generally defend the contract award decision regardless, the
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 21, 2025
New OCI Rule Contains Big Changes
The proposed OCI rule implementing the Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act has just dropped. We started discussing the Act back in early 2023 after it was passed in late 2022, and I outlined my predictions at the Court of Federal Claims judi
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 20, 2025
SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 13-17, 2025
Happy Friday! We hope you had a great week. We are already halfway through January and looking forward to see if the Chiefs can finish the three-peat! The federal landscape has been busy, with updates spanning Buy America, small business dollars, and procurement complications, in
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 17, 2025
Event! MyGovWatch Live: The B2G Roundtable, January 22, 2025, 12:00pm CDT
If you’re interested in winning more B2G business through the bid process, but need some answers, join this live forum and talk about this market with people who have helped hundreds of companies win government contracts. This month’s co-hosts are Koprince McCall Pottroff’s own N
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 14, 2025
SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 6-10, 2025
It’s Friday and time for another week in review! We hope you have had a great week and are safe from the extreme weather conditions the country seems to be experiencing right now. We are still digging out from the blizzard sent our way by the polar vortex. We also hope that our r
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 10, 2025
Govology Webinar: An Introduction to Government Small Business Certifications (2025 Update), January 21, 2025, 1:00 pm EST
Steven Koprince, Govology legal analyst and retired founder of Koprince McCall Pottroff will be presenting this webinar. In this course he provides a big-picture overview of small business certifications in the government marketplace and you will learn about various federal small
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 10, 2025
Game Changers for Government Contractors: Understanding the Small Business Rule of Two
Thanks to Michael LeJeune for hosting me on his podcast, Game Changers for Government Contractors. It’s always great talking to Michael and this is a very pertinent topic for a lot of contractors. The Rule of Two is undergoing some changes in proposed rules and federal contractor
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 9, 2025
Year in Review: Top SmallGovCon Posts of 2024
Happy New Year, SmallGovCon readers! As we look forward to the new updates, decisions, and commentary in 2025, it’s also a good time to reflect on the important and well-read posts from 2024. This post revisits our most popular blog posts from 2024. Below, we summarize the blogs
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 8, 2025
Less Extraordinary: Revised SBA Rule Gives Clear Guidance on Extraordinary Circumstances
Many of the SBA’s small business programs have restrictions on what are commonly referred to as “extraordinary circumstances” or “extraordinary actions.” It’s a topic that we have discussed many times before, including this blog post discussing a case at SBA’s Office of Hearings
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 7, 2025
SmallGovCon Week in Review: December 30-January 3, 2025
Happy Friday and Happy New Year to all of our SmallGovCon readers! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to 2025. As we look forward to the new year and close out the old, there are sure to be lots of developments in the federal contracting space.
Koprince Law LLC · Jan 3, 2025
A Glitch In Time? GAO Denies Late Proposal Protest for Lack of Systemic Outages with Agency System
Both GAO and the federal agencies take proposal deadlines with the utmost seriousness. We have discussed a few other examples of late proposals being denied by GAO before. Now, we have another one. This time, the protester put forth the argument that its lateness was not its faul
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 26, 2024
Happy Holidays to All, Big and Small, from SmallGovCon!
Happy Holidays from all of us at SmallGovCon. Throughout the year, we’ve enjoyed bringing you the best updates and analysis out there for small business federal contractors and their partners. We wish all of you a great end to 2024 and have a great holiday season! The post Happy
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 24, 2024
Strategies for Dealing with a Government Shutdown
Shuttering of the government (or parts of the government) following appropriations lapses has become an increasingly common phenomenon in recent times. Continuing resolutions have become a recurring stopgap measure. Funding lapses interrupt the usual predictability of government
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 20, 2024
SmallGovCon Week in Review: December 16-20, 2024
Hello, blog readers! Well, everyone is on pins and needles to see if the federal government will face a shut down. As you may have heard, the House rejected the proposed government funding, so now we wait to see if the third proposal will be agreed upon today to keep things going
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 20, 2024
No Protesting Canceled Contracts, Says COFC
Often contractors will protest an award, then learn that the contract at issue was cancelled by the government due to corrective action. When that occurs, contractors of course feel as if their concerns were not resolved, or the protested other parties were let off the proverbial
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 20, 2024
News Flash: SBA Releases Final HUBZone Rule Update, Other Small Business Changes
SBA will be releasing the final rule for the HUBZone Program Updates and Clarifications, and Clarifications to Other Small Business Programs on December 17, 2024. As we have discussed, this rule made a lot of changes to the HUBZone program. But it also updated a lot of other smal
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 16, 2024
SmallGovCon Week in Review: December 9-13, 2024
Hello and happy Friday! We’ve been getting some chilly temperatures here in the Midwest and it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. The lights are up downtown and the city is looking very festive! We hope you are enjoying the holiday season in your neck of the woods. We also
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 13, 2024
NAICS Code Appeal: OHA Says Agency’s Assignment of Code Doesn’t Have to be Perfect
When a contractor believes an agency assigned the wrong North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code to a solicitation, it can file an appeal with the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA). However, for OHA to correct the NAICS code, the contractor must show th
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 11, 2024
SBA Issues Final Rule to Streamline WOSB Program Rules
In June, we reported on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that applied to the SBA’s Woman-Owned Small Business/Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) regulations. These proposed rules were intended to take the WOSB regulations and make them more consistent wit
Koprince Law LLC · Dec 6, 2024