Why prior joint ventures and teaming agreements are important

I have talked to many companies recently that are reluctant to enter into Joint Ventures or teaming agreements. This is due to some belief that they will lose out down the road, but in a very competitive market, JVs or TAs are important to have so that companies can represent each other and submit for proposals and ensure that all the Ts are crossed.

Joint Ventures and Teaming Agreements

For those of you that I have reached out to and you did not want to do a JV or TA please read below and understand that having the paperwork in place prior to proposals is important. If I do go after opportunities and do not have these JVs or TAs in place I can not represent your company properly as part of my team.

Further, those of you just starting up please feel free to contact me for consultation and guidance on the best methods forward.

“8(a) Joint Venture Timing Ruling

I know sometimes we can get into the minutia on SBA and FAR regulations but I think this is an important ruling regarding 8(a) Joint Ventures.

May 29, 2014, OHA (Office of Hearings and Appeals) made the following ruling regarding BGI-Fiore JV, LLC it was an LLC set up as a Joint Venture between an 8(a) firm and a prior 8(a) firm to do facilities services at NASA’s Langley Research Center.

Critical Dates

• December 10, 2013 – BGI-Fiore’s 8(a) Joint Venture Agreement is filed with the SBA
• December 19, 2013 – NASA issues Solicitation
• January 21, 2014 – Due Date for proposals (which is later extended)
• January 27, 2014 – BGI – Fiore submits its proposal in response to the RPF
• January 28, 2014 – Due date extension date
• February 6, 2014 – NASA notified BGI-Fiore’s that it has been eliminated from the competition sighting that its joint-venture had not been approved by the SBA prior to its proposal submission on January 28, 2014.

NASA sights as the reason it did not wish to award the contract to BGI-Fiore was NASA “didn’t want to go through the evaluation process with BGI-Fiore if they are not 8(a) certified.”

RULING:

Accordingly, SBA maintains that the correct and harmonious reading of the two regulations is one where 52.219-18 requires the 8(a) participant members of an 8(a) joint venture to be certified prior to the submission of a proposal, and 13 C.F.R. § 124.513(e), which governs the process for approving 8(a) joint venture agreements, allows a joint venture to compete for an award so long as SBA approves the agreement prior to the time of contract award.

This ruling gives 8(a) joint ventures more time flexibility which can be a critical time in getting your ducks in a row so you can win a contract. This ruling doesn’t seem that significant at first but when you consider a bureaucratic error costing a firm a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract based upon timing this added flexibility makes putting together a joint venture when going after a contract more attractive. ”

***document captured from an email sent to Total Technical Solutions, Inc 6/30/14