I know, I'm as shocked as the rest of you. But according to the General Services Administration, the planned consolidation of the 24 Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) into a single, unified schedule is going to happen, and it's going to happen soon (at least by Federal contracting standards). Yesterday, GSA released issued an advance notice [...]
There are many ways to kick off a weekend, and "liveblogging" a youtube video of a Congressional oversight hearing on LinkedIn is...honestly, it has got to be one of the least popular options. Still, for bizarre reasons that I cannot fully explain, this past Friday, that's what I did. The hearing was entitled "Oversight of the SBA's Women-Owned [...]
On Tuesday, after over four (4!) years, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has finally issued proposed rules that would amend the regulations for certification of woman-owned small businesses (WOSBs) and economically-disadvantaged WOSBs (EDWOSBs). Fans of government socio-economic programs may recall that the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorized three changes to the WOSB program: [...]
Recently I had an interesting conversation with a friend-of-a-friend. Let's call her "Dahlia." Dahlia has an MBA and has had a successful career working for some of the largest defense contractors in the DC area. For a long time -- years! -- she has been thinking about using her training and expertise to start a [...]
A new proposed rule would resolve discrepancies between the SBA Regulations found in 13 CFR 125.6 and the current implementing Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clause, FAR 52.219-14. When the proposed rule goes into effect, it will align the FAR clause with the SBA regulations in several areas, including the method of calculating LOS compliance, the "similarly [...]
On November 27, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced a plan to consolidate the 24 Multiple Award Schedules (MAS), aka Federal Supply Schedules aka GSA Schedules, available to Federal contractors into a single, unified schedule. This consolidation should (in theory) make life easier for Federal purchases, reduce the administrative burden on contractors who hold multiple MAS, [...]
Gather around, children, while I tell you a story about the scariest, most terrifying thing of all. Not murder, not vampires or ghosts...proposed regulatory changes. Mwa ha ha! On Halloween, the Small Business Administration published a proposed rule that would make substantial changes to Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) regulations, including rules for eligibility, certification [...]
There are many things that made me cringe in a recent article in New York Magazine, “Can Fashion Ever be an Ethical Business”. I want to hone in on just one part, specifically this quote from an anonymous Fashion Producer: “From the moment you get a contract you are being stolen from. The contract says, ‘Get [...]
Hi Again! In my last post, I discussed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and how they’re used, reasons you might want one, factors that impact whether the NDA is enforceable in court, and other issues in a clever question and answer format. In this post, I’m going to do the same thing for non-competition agreements (A/K/A “non-competes”). [...]
This is Part 1 in a series for non-lawyers on Restrictive Covenants in employment and business law. My plan is to start with Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), and move on to Non-Competition, Non-Solicitation, and Non-Disparagement agreements and clauses. Restrictive Covenants are also used and sometimes abused in other areas, such as real estate and in business-to-business [...]
