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By: Brad Reaves and Jake Noe
The Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a major interim final rule (IFR), effective October 3, 2025, that could significantly reshape both current and prospective Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and Airport Concessions DBE (ACDBE) participants. This update highlights the key revisions and what they mean for your business. By: Jake Noe and Brad Reaves
If you’ve been following the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul, you’ve probably heard about the major rewrite of FAR Part 19. But if this update slipped under your radar, here’s what you need to know: on September 26, 2025, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council officially issued an overhaul to FAR Part 19 — a move with real implications for small business government contractors. By: Jake Noe and Brad Reaves
If you are a certified HUBZone small business — or a large business considering a joint venture with a HUBZone — the SBA has just made a significant regulatory change you need to know about. by: Paul Hawkins and Jake Noe On December 17, 2024, the SBA published a final rule that will likely have a major impact on HUBZone businesses. This final rule implemented four (4) major categories of changes that HUBZone business will have to need to comply with. Specifically, these four (4) changes related to the following topics: (1) definition of principal office; (2) definition of employee; (3)
By: Paul Hawkins and Jake Noe
To protest or not? This is a question many government contractors face frequently whether because they were not chosen for award of a contract or because they are facing unfair or unreasonable solicitation terms. This article is the first in a short series on protests where we will cover how and when a contractor can and should use available, formal protest/appeal processes to challenge an agency’s actions in connection with a procurement. We will cover pre- and post-award bid protests, how the procurement Q&A process and debriefings play into protests, where and how to file bid protests, differences in the available bid protest forums, and last, size and status related protests with the SBA (including NAICS appeals). By: Paul Hawkins and Jake Noe
For quite some time, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program has been a major focus for DoD contractors, and a mainstay topic of conversation at conferences, networking events, panel discussions, and the like. Everyone agrees on the critical need to protect sensitive unclassified information from adversaries targeting the defense industrial base (DIB). While cybersecurity compliance is nothing new (contractors have been subject to the DFARS cybersecurity and reporting requirement for years), CMMC aimed to introduce a standardized and more tailored approach, making a company's assessed cybersecurity maturity a prerequisite for new contracts, moving away from a one-size-fits-all model. However, the implementation of these requirements has been inconsistent, leaving many contractors uncertain about their next steps and what to expect from future contracts. by: Sara Tandy On December 14, 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a Final Rule implementing Executive Order 14055, Non-Displacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts, aimed at preventing disruptions in federal services by encouraging use of the same workers when the performance of a federal service contract shifts from one contractor to another.
Executive Order 14055 and the Final Rule essentially provide that a successor contractor must hire or offer the right of first refusal to the predecessor’s employees whenever a service contract with the government expires and a follow-on contract is awarded. By: Sara Tandy Non-competition agreements (i.e., “non-competes”) present one of the few areas of employment law where employers have mixed emotions, largely depending on what’s at stake and which party desires to enforce the restriction. But regardless of whether you love or hate them, a future without non-competes is on the horizon.
In April 2022, Governor Youngkin signed into law SB550, which prohibits the use of pay-if-paid clauses in public and private construction contracts. This represents a sea change in Virginia construction law where the contract was always king. With the change in law, Virginia joined the minority of states (CA, DE, KS, IL, IN, NC, NY, NV, MN, UT, SC, and WI) that prohibit provisions that shift the risk on owner nonpayment to subcontractors. SB550 went into effect on January 1, 2023, and applies to contracts entered from that date forward.
Just before Christmas, the SBA gave small business government contractors a nice gift. An SBA final rule went into effect on December 19, 2022, adjusting upwards all receipts-based size standards and measures of economic disadvantage. For size standards, this means that for any small business set-aside procurements or any SBA program where a concern must qualify as a small business, the SBA has increased the five (5) year average receipts-measured size standards for all those applicable NAICS codes. (recall, since January 6, 2022, federal contractors are required to use a five (5) year average instead of three (3) years). Note that these increases only apply to receipts-based (i.e., typically construction and services) and not employee-based (i.e., typically manufacturing and supply) NAICS codes. For measuring economic disadvantage, the SBA has increased the thresholds for personal net worth, adjusted gross income, and total asset value. These thresholds apply to the 8(a) Business Development and Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) Programs as well as firm’s self-certifying at www.SAM.gov as a Small Disadvantaged Business.
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