Cy Alba, a partner in the Government Contracts Group at PilieroMazza, was quoted in Federal News Network on May 13, 2022. The article by Jason Miller, entitled “GSA is out with suggested corrections to $50B Polaris RFP,” discussed proposed amendments to the mentor-protégé and joint venture requirements in the Polaris governmentwide acquisition contract.
“The law is not entirely clear on where the ‘line’ is on the amount of experience that can be required by an agency so I believe it would come down to whether it is reasonable to meet the government’s needs or if this is unduly restrictive of competition,” Cy said in the article. “If a joint venture is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business eligible joint venture, but the SDVOSB has no experience, GSA could use this language to downgrade or apply some risk rating to the joint venture on that basis,” he added. “Whether that is reasonable would depend on the facts I think, but it also seems like a compromise GSA is undertaking because I know companies were on both sides of this issue, lobbying to allow full reliance on mentors, which the law allows, or some limit, which the law arguably allows as well. I think it is important for everyone to put in any comments they may have, though, as the outcome could determine whether Polaris will rise like a phoenix or just burn like CIO-SP4.”
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