It has been a long time coming, but it appears that the government will (finally) amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to align with prior changes by the Small Business Administration (SBA) concerning credit for lower-tier small business subcontracting.
The propose rule addresses changes to FAR 19.704 and 52.219-9 to marry the regulation up with SBA’s amendments.
We first covered this issue back in 2016 when SBA issued a final rule amending the small business subcontracting plan regulations. SBA’s amendment allows large prime contractors on federal jobs to receive credit for lower-tier subcontracting awards to small businesses and other socio-economically disadvantaged firms. That is, rather than limit credit to first-tier subcontracts, prime contracts may count the awards their first-tier subcontractors make to small businesses towards their subcontracting goals.
Continue reading at: Fox Rothschild LLP
