Of the over $500 billion per year spent contracting for everything from computers to carriers, the vast majority of money ultimately awarded and performed by contractors happened without a contract directly from the government. Therefore, there is usually no business relationship (privity) between the government and the contractor doing work for its benefit.
How that can be? What’s going on?
In fact, while the government awards a prime contract for products and services, most often many of the prime’s deliverables from that contract will be subcontracted out to one or many large and small business firms.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/blog/2015/01/28/government-subcontracting/22478955/