By Pamela J. Bethel The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) business development program, which provides for contracting preferences to small business owners, against a constitutional challenge that the program involves impermissible racial classifications. The decision in Rothe Development, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense and...
Tag: Disadvantaged businesses
O’Riordan Bethel Wins Key Ruling on Veteran-Owned Business Set-Asides
Here is an interesting and important bid protest case that a team from O’Riordan Bethel won earlier this year in the Small Business Administration’s Office of Hearings and Appeals. The holding of the case was that a mentor-protégé joint venture formed under Section 8(a) does not qualify for a set-aside as a service-disabled veteran-owned small...
Veteran-Owned Small Businesses Reap Big Win at U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on June 16 that when Congress wrote “shall,” it meant “shall.” The result of its decision in Kingdomware Technologies Inc. v. United States will have major implications for the federal contracting efforts of veteran-owned small businesses (VOSBs) and may well give VOSBs a big boost in their constant efforts...
What Are the Real Issues With Minority Contracting?
Governing magazine, a prestigious nonpartisan publication that covers state and local government issues, just published in its April 2016 issue a critical article that indicates that in some parts of the country, programs intended to help women- and minority-owned contractors are failing to do so successfully and that often, these contracts actually benefit nonminority companies....
Congratulations to Rath Enterprises, Inc.
Congratulations to Rath Enterprises, Inc. DC’s Department of Transportation has certified Rath as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. DC-based Rath Enterprises, Inc. (http://www.rathinc.com/about.html) is capable of performing all aspects of environmental remediation and demolition services, including asbestos & lead removal, along with the remediation of mold, contaminated transformers, batteries, ballast, PCB oil and more. It already...
No, the Government Contract Preference Programs are Not Broken
By Carol L. O’Riordan We believe that the various government contract programs that give a degree of preference to disadvantaged groups are a good idea, and we work hard to put our clients in a position to benefit from them, but we also recognize that they can be abused. Two years ago, we wrote in...
D.C. Making Changes to Its Small Business Preference Rules
On February 26, 2015, the District of Columbia’s Department of State and Local Business Development (DSLBD) made an announcement requesting public comments on recent changes made last fall to the D.C. local law concerning contract preferences for small businesses and other “Certified Business Enterprises” (CBEs). These changes were made by the Small and Certified Business...
SBA Changes Contract Qualification Rules for Small Businesses
As we noted in an earlier blog post this month, the Small Business Administration has released a proposed rule that would affect, in several ways, the operation of several special business preference programs for federal contracts. These include the 8(a) program for disadvantaged small businesses, the HUBZone program for businesses in historically underutilized business zones, and...
New SBA Rule Would Help Small Businesses Qualify for Federal Programs
By Carol L. O’Riordan The Small Business Administration has released a proposed rule that would affect the operation of several special business preference programs for federal contracts, such as the 8(a) program for disadvantaged small businesses, the HUBZone program for businesses in historically underutilized business zones, and the program to aid businesses run by service-disabled...
SBA Proposes New Mentor-Protege Program for Small Businesses
The Small Business Administration, which has the mission of expanding federal contract opportunities for various types of small businesses while continuing to work to prevent fraud in these programs, is proposing to establish a government-wide mentor-protégé program for all types of small businesses, parallel to the existing mentor-protégé program under the SBA’s 8(a) business...