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Stephen D. Tobin

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Steve brings considerable government experience to the firm’s clients, having served as an associate counsel for litigation and senior trial attorney in the Department of the Navy’s Office of General Counsel. As a result of his work with the Navy, Steve helps clients strategize the best approaches for negotiation and litigation involving complex federal contracts. He also advises companies and individuals facing government investigations under the False Claims Act.

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On August 22, 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint-in-intervention in a previously filed whistleblower suit under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA) against the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and Georgia Tech Research Corp. (GTRC), an affiliate of Georgie Tech, for falsely representing its compliance with Department of Defense (DoD) cybersecurity requirements. Former and current Georgia Tech cybersecurity team employees brought the initial whistleblower lawsuit. Continue Reading DOJ Looks To Sting Georgia Tech Under the False Claims Act: The Perils of Cybersecurity Non-Compliance

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Under the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) mentor-protégé program, smaller businesses are afforded the tools to compete for government contracts by partnering with larger businesses that serve as mentors to the small businesses. In theory, both the mentor and the protégé benefit under the program, with the mentor gaining access to set-aside small business contracts that it would not otherwise be eligible for and the protégé receiving the advantages of the mentor’s experience, knowledge, and resources. But what happens when the two businesses do not get along, and one company is ready to give the boot to the other? The case between Yorktown Systems Group, Inc. and Threat Tec provides some helpful insight. Continue Reading Mentor-Protégé Program Pitfalls: Insights from Yorktown and Threat Tec’s Dispute

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By Stephen Tobin

In 2021, the DOJ announced its Civil-Cyber-Fraud Initiative, which focused on contractors who fail to follow required cybersecurity standards. The initiative is aimed at accountability for knowingly providing deficient cybersecurity products or services, knowingly misrepresenting their cybersecurity practices or protocols, or knowingly violating obligations to monitor and report cybersecurity incidents and breaches.Continue Reading DOJ Is Taking Cybersecurity Seriously; Contractors Should Too

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The System for Award Management (SAM) is the official website for registering to do business with the U.S. government, such as competing for federal procurement contracts. Under FAR 52.204-7, “an Offeror is required to be registered in SAM when submitting an offer or quotation, and shall be registered until time of award, during performance, and through final payment of any contract …resulting from the solicitation.” In the recent GAO protest of TLS Joint Venture, LLC (TLS), the awardee of a Navy contract for custodial services learned the hard way that maintaining active registration in SAM from the time of its initial offer until the agency’s award of the contract is a strict requirement, and that non-compliance can produce harsh results. Continue Reading What in the SAM Hill Happened to My Contract?

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Sanford Federal, Inc., the selected awardee for a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) contract, learned the hard way that a contractor simply cannot ignore a size protest, regardless of its actual merit.

On August 8, 2023, the VA issued an RFQ for boiler plant safety device testing, calibration and inspection for one of its facilities in Arizona. The RFQ was set aside entirely for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses and assigned NAICS code 238290, Other Building Equipment. The corresponding size standard for this code was $22 million in average annual receipts. The VA received two timely quotes and selected Sanford for the award. The non-awardee, Caldaia Controls, Inc., filed a protest with the contracting officer asserting that Sanford was not a small business because it received significant contract awards between 2019 and 2023, which, when averaged, exceeded the procurement’s applicable size standard. The contracting officer forwarded the protest to the cognizant SBA Area Office (Area Office). Continue Reading An SBA Public Service Announcement: If You See Something, Say Something

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In Steiner Construction Co., Inc., the Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld the U.S. Coast Guard’s (USCG) award of a $1.19 billion small business set-aside shipbuilding contract to a business concern that was later determined to be other than a small business. The protestor argued that the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Hearing and Appeals (OHA) decision to vacate an earlier SBA Area Office’s size determination that found the awardee to be an eligible small business concern required that the USCG terminate the award. Continue Reading It’s No Big Deal: How a Non-Small Business Won a Small Business Set-Aside Contract

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On December 26, 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) published the much anticipated proposed rule for the revamped Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) 2.0 Program.

Following growing concerns within DoD that contractors were not consistently implementing the cybersecurity requirements of DFARS 252.204-2012, DoD responded with the creation of the CMMC Program in 2019 to move away from a “self-attestation” model of security. The CMMC Program’s purpose is for contractors and subcontractors to demonstrate that Federal Contract Information (FCI) and Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) being processed, stored, or transmitted is adequately safeguarded. CMMC builds from existing cybersecurity requirements by requiring that contractors and subcontractors undergo Self-Assessments, Third-Party Assessments, or Government Assessments, as required, to ensure that mandated information protection requirements have been implemented. Continue Reading Happy New Year From DoD – The Proposed CMMC Rule Is Here

The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA) recently issued a decision regarding a contractor’s claim for increased performance costs due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notable about this case is the contractor’s invocation of a July 2, 2020 Department of Defense (DoD) memorandum concerning the financial consequences on contractors with firm-fixed-price contracts lacking an economic price adjustment clause during “historic and unprecedented challenges” in the wake of the pandemic’s onset.
Continue Reading ASBCA Says “Not So Fast” to Contractors Seeking Relief from Pandemic Impacts

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On August 19, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published a notice regarding a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) for all Type 2 Consolidated Employer Information Reports, Standard Form 100 (EEO-1 Report), filed by all federal contractors, including “first-tier subcontractors,” (covered contractors) from 2016-2020.
Continue Reading OFCCP Issues September 19 Deadline for Federal Contractors to Object to Disclosure of EEO-1 Data