Our friends at Winvale offered this post from their client Andrea Davis, Director of Contracts at Govplace, who shared these top 15 tips that she’s learned in her 20 years working for government contractors, in no particular order:
1. Late is late.
Electronically submit your competitive proposal at least 24 hours in advance to be safe. Case law is not favorable for contractors who submit their proposal less than 24 hours before the due date, even if the late delivery is the Government’s fault (e.g., the Government’s network is down).
2. Small Businesses with sub-categorizations (e.g., Women-Owned Small Businesses, or HUBZone Businesses) count TWICE OR MORE for small business reporting.
So, if you are wondering why your large business is so excited about subcontracting to a woman-owned small business (WOSB), where the owner happens to be a service-disabled veteran (SDVOSB) doing business in a HUBZone, it is because the dollars subcontracted to this entity likely count towards the subcontracting goals for: 1) Small Business, 2) WOSB, 3) SDVOSB and 4) HUBZone.
3. The subcontract type does not have to match the prime contract type, and the subcontract NAICS code does not have to match the prime contract’s NAICS code.
If I had a dollar for each instance when I heard someone state the opposite of the above truths, I’d be a millionaire.
4. Generally, concerning Government data rights / Intellectual property (IP), even if a company develops software using Government funds under a Government contract, the Government doesn’t own the software.
The Government does have unlimited rights in the software, but so does the company who developed the software.
5. You’ll never regret having a solid process in place for comparing job candidates’ resumes to GSA Labor Category minimum qualifications for education and experience.
For both your company’s employees and any lower tier subcontractor’s employees. People charging to a GSA labor category for which they are not qualified is a compliance issue that can bite you years down the road. By then, people have moved on, resumes cannot be located, the subcontractor is out of business, etc.
6. In Government contracting, ‘realism’ and ‘reasonableness’ have opposite meanings.
When the Government is checking to see if labor costs/prices are too low (i.e., if they are worried about the company being able to retain employees during contract performance), they are evaluating for ‘cost realism,’ but if they are checking to ensure prices/costs are not too high, they’re evaluating ‘cost/price reasonableness.’ It is not correct to use these words interchangeably.
7. FAR 9.6 defines prime-sub relationships, partnerships, and joint ventures as contractor team arrangements (e.g., a classic teaming agreement resulting in a subcontract once the prime contract is awarded).
But a GSA Contractor Teaming Arrangement (CTA) is entirely different. A GSA CTA is a when two companies who each have their own GSA Schedules, join together to co-prime an opportunity. Interesting fact: since all GSA CTA partners are considered co-primes, if any of the GSA CTA partners are ‘other than small’ in the solicitation’s NAICS code, the entire GSA CTA is considered Large.
8. There is a difference between regulation and law.
The FAR is mostly regulation, but it also references statutes/laws. Understand that you can influence regulation by submitting comments when the proposed regulation is posted for public comment.
9. Many non-Federal (state and local) government entities and even commercial companies performing due diligence on a company, will check for SAM.gov active exclusions (formerly, the Excluded Party List System or ‘EPLS’).
Therefore, if you are debarred from Federal contracting, some of your other future non-Federal business may be at risk as well.
10. The protest ‘effectiveness rate’ percentage (in recent years ranging 43-47%) is the best way to gauge how often a protester gets some sort of relief in response to their bid protest at GAO.
If you only look at the sustain rate percentage, which is much lower (ranging 12-17%), you are not getting the full picture. Many protests are dismissed as ‘academic’ before the 100-day time frame at GAO (often because the agency chooses to take corrective action to remedy a procurement flaw) so you can’t just look at the protests that went to a full GAO decision.
11. Post-award obligations in teaming agreements (TAs) (i.e., the requirement to enter into a subcontract) are generally not enforceable in Virginia because Virginia courts have repeatedly interpreted a TA as ‘an agreement to agree in the future.’
But some of the case law highlights things that would have potentially made the particular TA at issue enforceable. Like replacing this language: “The parties will negotiate a subcontract after prime award,” with “Prime shall award a subcontract to the subcontractor after prime award.” If you’re in the subcontractor role, try removing any language where a TA will terminate if negotiations haven’t concluded within x days of prime contract award. Virginia courts have left open the possibility that post-award obligations in TAs could be enforceable, depending on the certainty and specifics provided in the TA.
For example, while often impractical, courts have hinted that attaching a subcontract template to the TA that is contingent upon the prime being awarded the prime contract, would render the promise to award a subcontract enforceable. Note, however, that even when it is difficult for a teammate to enforce a prime’s promise in a TA to award the teammate a subcontract, that does not mean that other requirements and obligations in a TA are unenforceable. For example, the parties are still likely bound by the pre-award obligations to cooperate on preparing a proposal, to be exclusive to one-another (if applicable), and to maintain the confidentiality of information that may be disclosed pursuant to the agreement.
12. As Federal contracts professionals, we still must learn commercial contracts interpretation rules for our commercial negotiations.
The imperative ‘SHALL’ is the strongest language for contracts interpretation. ‘Will,’ ‘may,’ and ‘should’ are not as strong — use ‘shall.’
13. If you want to challenge a solicitation term (e.g., evaluation method, Statement of Work ambiguity, etc.) and you cannot resolve it through Q&As, you MUST submit a PRE-AWARD protest BEFORE THE PROPOSAL DUE DATE.
Otherwise, 98% of the time, a post-award protest challenging the solicitation will be dismissed by as untimely, regardless of the merit.
14. There is a difference between quotes and proposals. A quote is submitted in response to an RFQ and is considered ‘informational.’
The contract is not formed until the Government signs their acceptance of the ‘information’ and the contractor countersigns or starts performing. A proposal is an official offer made in response to an RFP that is valid for a specific duration of time (e.g., 60 days). It becomes a contract when the Government signs a contract with your proposal details in it.
15. Unless there have been some late 2019 cases on this topic, as of right now, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) case law on key personnel who depart a company between the time of a final proposal submission and contract award, is not favorable for contractors.
Companies would be wise to limit named key personnel (not propose more than required), and maybe offer proposed key personnel an incentive to stay until the contract is awarded (and hopefully longer). I’ve also learned that it can be helpful to get a written commitment from a departing key person that they will return to work for the company if an award is made.
This blog post appeared on the Winvale blog at https://info.winvale.com/blog/15-government-contracting-tips-from-winvale-client-govplace and was reprinted with permission.
