A lie may be a lie, but false representations and certifications on SAM may not necessarily be a proper protest ground. As the recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) decision in Phoenix Environmental Design, Inc. (Phoenix), B-418473, B-418473.2 (May 20, 2020) suggests, “minor” inaccurate statements may fall short of sustaining a protest. Through the underlying solicitation,Read More
Under the CARES Act, Congress issued Section 3610 which authorized executive branch agencies to provide contractors certain reimbursement where the contractors used paid leave to keep their employees or subcontractors in a ready state and, inter alia, protect the life and safety of government and contractor personnel during the COVID-19 national emergency. On April 17,Read More
I. Introduction The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was enacted as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act on March 27, 2020. Unfortunately, the path to providing PPP loan relief has not been smooth. Instead, it has been paved with uncertainty. While the CARES Act laid out specific requirements for PPP eligibility and relief, theRead More
Ideally, an agency’s solicitation would provide comprehensive information about its requirements so that interested offerors each had what they needed to craft their best response to the agency’s actual needs. Such a situation would create a level playing field for competition and allow the agency to conduct a meaningful “apples to apples” evaluation to determineRead More
Last week we reported on developments in the Department of Defense (DoD) efforts to implement enhanced Defense Industrial Base cybersecurity requirements. Following our report, Katie Arrington, DoD Chief Information Security Officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, confirmed our thoughts that the DoD’s roll out of Cybersecurity Maturity ModelRead More