Government Contracting News | The Contracting Education Academy

November 15, 2019 By cs

Agencies are relying more on alternatives to contractor suspension and debarment

Annual report shows that exclusions from doing business with the government have decreased in recent years, yet are still up from 2009.

The number of contractor suspensions and debarments in fiscal 2018 was nearly double that of 2009, when an interagency committee started formally tracking them, but federal agencies are also increasingly relying on alternative measures to resolve disputes, according to a new report.

In fiscal 2018, agencies surveyed by the Interagency Suspension and Debarment Committee reported 480 suspensions (temporary exclusions when an investigation is ongoing), 1,542 proposed debarments and 1,334 debarments (exclusions for a set period of time after an investigation or legal proceedings against a contractor), according to the committee’s annual report released Tuesday. This is about twice the activity level reported in fiscal 2009. However, since fiscal 2014, the number of suspensions and debarments has been decreasing.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2019/11/agencies-are-relying-more-alternatives-contractor-suspension-and-debarment/161157/

November 14, 2019 By cs

Bid protests hit 10-year low

Companies filed 16% fewer bid protests in fiscal 2019 than the year prior.

According to data released last Thursday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), vendors filed 2,198 protests in fiscal 2019, 16% fewer than were filed in the previous year. Fiscal 2019’s total represented 22% fewer protests than GAO’s 10-year high-water mark—the 2,789 filed in fiscal 2016.

According to GAO, the agency closed 2,200 cases in fiscal 2019 and sustained 77 of the 587 total decisions decided on merit. Fiscal 2019’s 13% sustain rate—wherein GAO agrees with the bid protestor—was its lowest since fiscal 2015. A large number of bid protests are resolved when agencies agree to take corrective action rather than GAO carrying the protest to full conclusion.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/11/bid-protests-hit-10-year-low/161168/

November 13, 2019 By cs

Failure is an option for DoD’s experimental agency, but how much?

Since 2015, millions of dollars have been invested in the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, the agency watched as some of its projects fell flat, and only about 23% the organization’s completed projects ended up in the hands of troops — but the thing is: DIU is completely fine with that.

DIU’s success statistics, delivered in a July report card to Congress, are the first long-term numbers to come out of the Defense Innovation Unit (formerly the Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental) since its inception.

The metrics, which also address time-to-contract and other areas, highlight a vexing dichotomy currently playing out in the Defense landscape: How can the world’s largest military field state-of-the-art technologies faster to counter China and Russia without compromising oversight and opening the door for waste?

While successful DIU experiments ended up, or will end up, as technologies that will protect service members from drones and detect cyber vulnerabilities on DoD networks, 77% of completed prototypes DIU invested in failed to make it to contract or have yet to make it to contract. That leaves millions of taxpayer dollars on the table, which can sometimes be a hard sell for lawmakers. Congress remains at least marginally skeptical of the program built to convert private cutting edge technology for military use.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2019/10/special-report-failure-is-an-option-for-dods-experimental-agency-but-how-much/

November 12, 2019 By cs

FBO no mo’

Today, beta.SAM.gov became the official source for federal business opportunities, replacing FBO.gov.

**This is the message visitors now see at FBO.gov.**

FBO, which stood for Federal Business Opportunities (or the shortened term FedBizOpps), contained a list of virtually every federal contract valued at more than $25,000. These contracts can now be found in the “Contract Opportunities” section of beta.SAM.gov.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is in charge of beta.SAM.gov. GSA’s vision for the merged databases is “a ‘family tree’ that organizes federal government users and establishes relationships between each department/independent agency’s sub-tiers and its offices.”

Visitors who attempt to go to FBO.gov are automatically rerouted to fbohome.sam.gov which provides notice that FBO has moved.

In visiting the new site today, we encountered long delays in connecting to beta.SAM.gov as well as to its Contract Opportunities page at beta.sam.gov/help/contract-opportunities. Users encountered similar delays when GSA last month moved the FARSite operated since 1996 by Hill Air Force Base to GSA-managed Acquisition.gov. Because of high traffic, GSA had to delay the transition from Oct. 1 to Oct. 21.

Links on beta.SAM.gov appear to be working, but users will experience delays in moving from one page to another and in downloading documents. Notably, we had to make multiple attempts to open the “FBO Transition Guide for Federal Administrators.” The Guide provides instructions to federal officials on how to post contract opportunities and related information to beta.SAM.gov. We encountered similar delays when trying to open various “Quick Start” guides.

The shift of FBO.gov to beta.SAM.gov is part of a larger merger of many legacy systems into one database. Previously, “Wage Determinations Online” and the “Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance” were shifted into beta.SAM.gov.

November 12, 2019 By cs

DOJ issues new guidance for treatment of confidential information under recent Supreme Court FOIA decision

Last month, the Department of Justice Office of Information Policy issued new guidance on the definition of confidential information under Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act.

This new guidance addresses the meaning of “confidential” in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Food Mktg. Inst. v. Argus Leader Media, 139 S. Ct. 2356 (2019). While not determinative, this DOJ Guidance offers contractors critical insight into how agencies will respond in the first instance to FOIA requests for information that may be subject to Exemption 4. This exemption protects “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person [that is] privileged or confidential.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4).

As noted by the Covington law firm earlier this year, in Food Marketing Institute, the Supreme Court jettisoned 40 years of established FOIA case law on how agencies defined confidential under Exemption 4. It rejected the well-established “competitive harm” test from National Parks & Conservation Association v. Morton, 498 F.2d 765 (D.C. Cir. 1974) based on the lack of support in the statutory language. In its place, it adopted a “plain language” interpretation of confidential, finding two potential definitions: (1) information “customarily kept private, or at least closely held,” by the submitting party; and (2) information disclosed when the receiving party provides “some assurance that it will remain secret.” The Supreme Court held that the first condition was mandatory but expressly left open whether confidential information could lose that status if provided to the government “without assurances that the government will keep it private.” As a result, contractors and agencies alike were left without clear guidance as to whether, or when, a government “assurance” may be required.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2019/11/doj-issues-new-guidance-for-treatment-of-confidential-information-under-recent-supreme-court-foia-decision/

Annual report shows that exclusions from doing business with the government have decreased in recent years, yet are still up from 2009.

Companies filed 16% fewer bid protests in fiscal 2019 than the year prior.

Since 2015, millions of dollars have been invested in the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, the agency watched as some of its projects fell flat, and only about 23% the organization’s completed projects ended up in the hands of troops — but the thing is: DIU is completely fine with that.

Today, beta.SAM.gov became the official source for federal business opportunities, replacing FBO.gov.

Last month, the Department of Justice Office of Information Policy issued new guidance on the definition of confidential information under Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act.

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