GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

Small Business Government Contracting and National Defense Authorization Act of 2013
This final rule amends the U.S. Small Business Administration's (SBA or Agency) regulations to implement provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, which pertains to performance requirements applicable to small business and socioeconomic program set-aside contracts and small business subcontracting.  This rule also amends SBA's regulations concerning the nonmanufacturer rule and affiliation rules.  Further, this rule allows a joint venture to qualify as small for any government procurement as long as each partner to the joint venture qualifies individually as small under the size standard corresponding to the NAICS code assigned in the solicitation, 81 Fed. Reg. 34243.  This rule is effective on June 30, 2016. 

SBA issued this rule after considering all comments provided in the rulemaking and, while we are still reviewing the rule in more detail, we are pleased that the rule accounts for concerns raised during the rulemaking process and is not as onerous as the proposed rule.  Also on May 31, we posted a blog article by Jon Williams and Pam Mazza, which has further details and highlights from the final rule.