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V. David Zvenyach

Consolidation and shared win themes

A topic that comes up every now and again in government-contracting-policy circles is the impact of corporate mergers and acquisitions on "the industrial base". Even the White House talks about how "extreme consolidation poses risks to our nation’s national and economic security". It's

Similar in size and scope

We've talked before about the way that bid protests usually work. Typically, there are three ways a protestor can claim that an agency messed up: 1. The agency screwed up some procedural thing. 2. The agency rated the winner too high. 3. The agency rated the protestor too

Almost irrefragable?

Pop quiz: do you have any idea of what the word "irrefragable" means? What about the phrase "almost irrefragable"? How about "well-nigh irrefragable"?[1] I assure you that irrefragable is a real word (even though my spell check doesn't think so), but

No SEWP for you

Where to begin? Last week, I announced that I would be writing about the GAO's decision in C3.ai. When I sat down to start writing, I figured I would write primarily about the government-facilitated cottage industry that is value-added resellers. I thought I might write broadly about

Page counts, billable increments, and greenhouse gas emissions

Near the end of 2022, the federal government published a proposed rule amending the FAR related to requirements around "Disclosure of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate-Related Financial Risk". Comments were due in mid-February and I finally got down to reading a few of them.[1] Don't

The Service Contract Act can be costly

We've talked about the Service Contract Act (the "SCA") before, but the basic idea is that for service contracts and for certain labor categories, government contractors have to pay people within those labor categories a "prevailing wage". The way it works is that the

The windfall that didn't come

A major theme in government contracting is figuring out "who bears the risk" for certain things. This comes up a lot in discussions around "contract type" and the differences between firm-fixed-price contracts and cost-reimbursable contracts. Typically, in a firm-fixed-price contract, the contractor bears the risk of

SAM-We-Are Not

I know this is going to sound obvious, but if you want to be a prime contractor with the federal government, you have to register in SAM. I know, I know. Look, I know. It sounds obvious. And I know it sounds like a pain. But we've talked

Make sure to check those boxes

We've talked before about NAICS arbitrage as a way to navigate government size standards for small-business set asides. Today, though, I want to talk about another tool in the toolkit: mentor-protégé joint ventures. To the uninitiated, a mentor-protégé relationship sounds like it might be sort of like a

Seller beware

Suppose you're putting together a proposal with the following facts: 1. You're the incumbent on a contract where some of the labor categories on the contract are covered under the Service Contract Act (the "SCA") and, therefore, you must pay people within those labor