By: Edward T. DeLisle
The SBA issued a press release yesterday regarding its new “Small Business Teaming Pilot Program”, which was established as part of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. The program will involve “training, guidance, counseling, mentoring and procurement assistance to small businesses” that are interested in teaming arrangements on federal
By: Edward T. DeLisle
This week the Department of Veteran’s Affairs announced that it will require all companies that wish to receive set-aside contracts as veteran-owned, or service-disabled, veteran-owned, businesses to verify their status. This announcement was made as part of the 2010 Veteran’s Benefit Act and is geared toward eliminating fraud and abuse. As
By: Edward T. DeLisle
On October 4, 2010, the Small Business Administration issued a Final Rule allowing for the implementation of the long-awaited set-aside program for women-owned businesses. The program is designed to assist federal agencies in achieving the current 5% statutory goal for the award of contracts to such companies. Pursuant to the current
By: Michael H. Payne
To protest or not to protest, that is the question. That may sound a little like William Shakespeare, but it actually is a question frequently posed by federal contractors. Particularly in the world of “best value” contracting, where subjective evaluation factors are applied to make source selections, contractors often feel that
By: Robert E. Little, Jr.
Individual sureties are natural persons – as opposed to corporations and limited liability companies – who offer to bind themselves on bid, performance, and payment bonds. Individual sureties are acceptable from prime contractors on federal construction projects, provided the individual owns and pledges sufficient assets to cover the appropriate percentage of the value of the bid or contract. However, they are not eligible for listing on the Department of Treasury’s list of approved corporate sureties. This means that neither they nor their assets have been federally vetted.
Attendees of the Bonding Basics segment of the 5th Annual National Veterans Small Business Conference and Expo, where I was a panelist representing the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), were treated to a discussion about individual sureties. Although some attendees may have left the conference with the impression that individual sureties are a simple last resort for firms that cannot obtain bonding through corporate sureties or with the assistance of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Surety Bond Guarantee Program, individual sureties are not so simple. There have been many occasions where contractors have lost out on federal government contracting opportunities because they did not understand the significance of establishing the acceptability and value of the asset or assets pledged by an individual surety.
During my 17 years as senior counsel at NAVFAC headquarters, I observed that the Navy’s experience with individual sureties’ pledged assets mirrored that of the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) in the 2009 case Tip Top Construction, Inc. v. U.S. I saw pledges of everything from non-existent bank stock and untradeable securities to “corporate reinsurance debentures” printed on very nice-looking paper.Continue Reading Federal Government Bonding Basics: Individual Sureties
By: Edward T. DeLisle & Craig Schroeder
Last year, the United States Association of Veterans in Business (“USAVETBIZ”) urged Congress for a government-wide preference in contracting and set-aside programs that extended the existing preference for service-disabled veteran owned small businesses (“SDVOSB”) to all veteran-owned small businesses. While that has not happened yet, the set aside
By: Edward T. DeLisle
On September 23, 2010, we wrote an article regarding the current status of the HUBZone priority fight between the GAO, the Court of Federal Claims and a number of federal agencies. That article followed another that we wrote on this issue on August 27, 2010. In a series of
By: Edward T. DeLisle
On August 27th, we posted an article regarding the recent Court of Federal Claims case, DGR Associates, Inc. v. United States. In that case, the protesting contractor took the position that the government agency, the Air Force, failed to follow the direction of Congress in determining how to set aside
A seminar on “How to Win Federal Construction Contracts with Teaming Arrangements” is being held at three different locations.
Dates/Locations:
October 5, 2010 – Hyatt Regency Dallas, TX
October 7, 2010 – Los Angeles Airport Marriott, CA
October 28, 2010 – Hilton Philadelphia Airport, PA
Time:
8:00a.m.-1:00p.m.
Cost:
$195 per person and $95 for each
By: Edward T. DeLisle
On August 13th, the Court of Federal Claims temporarily ended a controversy regarding how agencies go about setting aside contracts for certain qualified small businesses. DGR Associates, Inc. v. United States involved a decision by the Air Force to issue a set aside contract for qualified 8(a) companies. The project involved housing maintenance