When to call
There is no time to lose.
ANCs pursuing 8(a) set-asides face a different threat profile than standard small businesses: the rules often work in your favor, but the deadlines rarely do.
Call if:
- Your eligibility is challenged. Have you received notice from the area office that a competitor has challenged your eligibility? Treat the area office response as the decisive filing. OHA usually reviews the record you build there, and supplementation on appeal is limited.
- You believe you should challenge the awardee’s eligibility. Is there reason to doubt the awardee’s size or status? If the awardee is an ANC subsidiary, SBA affiliation rules may limit the available arguments. If not, the five-business-day protest window controls the decision.
- You receive a notice of unsuccessful offeror. Have you received a notice of unsuccessful offeror? Use the debriefing to test whether protest grounds exist and whether a protest could change the outcome. Corrective action that cannot affect the award is not worth pursuing.
- Your award is protested. Has a competitor challenged your award? Intervene if the protest puts your award, evaluation, set-aside, or source selection at issue. The agency will defend the procurement, but not your award specifically.
- Contract performance or payment is placed at risk. Is the agency issuing direction inconsistent with the contract terms or how you priced the work? These are constructive changes. They accumulate quickly, especially in remote or operationally demanding environments. They are recoverable — if you build the record while performance is ongoing.
We have answers.
Eligibility
You can’t compete if you are ineligible.
Size is the primary threat. ANCs are built to defend it.
Eligibility determines which contracts you can pursue, which awards you can defend, and which programs your business plan depends on. Area-office size determinations can be challenged — and defended — at the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals.
For ANCs, the eligibility landscape is different from standard 8(a) participants. Status challenges — which go to ownership, control, and program eligibility — face significant statutory barriers when the respondent is an ANC subsidiary.
The more consequential threat is a size challenge. Even there, ANCs occupy a structurally stronger position: SBA’s affiliation rules treat ANC subsidiaries differently from standard concerns, which limits the arguments a size protester can make.
What remains fully available is a direct challenge to whether the subsidiary meets the applicable size standard for the specific contract. Those challenges are technical and fact specific. The initial hurdle is building a strong record at the area office, because both the initial determination — and usually any decision by OHA — are limited to the record before the area office. OHA proceedings are short and consequential and the resulting decision determines whether the challenged award remains in place.
We protect your eligibility and the 8(a) program
- $2.5B SEC iPASS 2.0 award preserved on size appeal. We represented C2 Alaska on appeal from an area-office size determination tied to a $2.5 billion, ten-year SEC iPASS 2.0 8(a) set-aside IDIQ. OHA granted the appeal, vacated the incorrect area office determination, and remanded. On remand, the area office reversed its decision and C2 Alaska retained the award.
Size Appeal of C2 Alaska, LLC, SBA No. SIZ-6149 (2022). - PacArctic size protest defeated at OHA. We represented Ajanta Consulting, an ANC subsidiary, in a size protest challenging PacArctic’s award of a Navy Strategic Systems Programs financial-management 8(a) set-aside contract. OHA denied PacArctic’s appeal and affirmed the area-office determination. Ajanta received the contract.
Size Appeal of PacArctic, LLC, SBA No. SIZ-6105 (2021).
Performance
Protect the award. Then use what you’ve learned.
Defending what you’ve won — and challenging what you should have.
Winning the award is not the same as keeping it. A competitor’s bid protest can put the contract back in play after the award decision, and the agency’s response — corrective action, reevaluation, or re-solicitation — can put the award itself back in play.
Defending awards
We intervene to defend awards. We get admitted to the Protective Order, coordinate with agency counsel, and — where needed — file targeted comments on the Agency Report. The point is not to do everything; it is to do what is necessary to defend the award.
- SEC iPASS 2.0 award defended at GAO; protest denied on every ground. A competitor challenged the SEC’s award of the $2.5 billion 8(a) iPASS 2.0 IDIQ to our client, claiming the agency made multiple evaluation errors on both proposals and erred in the source selection decision. We prepared comments on the Agency Report. GAO denied the protest on every ground. Our client kept the award.
- Minneapolis maintenance award protected against a Technically Unacceptable protester (B-419293). The Army Corps of Engineers awarded a Minneapolis building-maintenance services contract to Chenega Tri-Services over Kaiyuh Services, which had been rated Technically Unacceptable. We intervened. GAO dismissed the initial allegations as premature and the supplemental allegations as untimely, and held the protester was not an interested party. Our client kept the award.
- $30M Fort Benning barracks defended on discussions vs. clarifications (B-408890). The Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $30 million design-build task order for Fort Benning barracks renovation to Alutiiq Manufacturing Contractors. The unsuccessful offeror — eliminated for exceeding the cost limitation — protested at GAO, arguing the Corps owed it discussions. We intervened. GAO held the Corps’ questions were clarifications, not discussions, and denied the protest. Our client kept the award.
Filing protests
We also file affirmative protests. When an ANC client did not receive an award it should have, we pursue the protest. We have obtained corrective action that terminated awarded contracts, produced amended solicitations, and resulted in awards to our clients.
- Army Corps maintenance award recovered after protest (B-423979). We filed a post-award protest for Chenega challenging the evaluation. The Corps terminated the awarded contract, amended the RFP, and re-issued the solicitation. Our client received the resulting award.
- 711th Human Performance Wing IDIQ; corrective action obtained (B-419123). We filed a post-award protest for Ajanta. The Air Force agreed to reevaluate every offeror’s technical volume on the contested subfactors and to issue additional awards. GAO dismissed the protest as academic. After reevaluation, the agency awarded a contract to our client.
We defend the awards you win — and pursue the ones you should have won.
Realization
After award, the risk changes.
Performing and getting paid what you are owed.
By the first day of performance, you have already invested time, money, personnel, and reputation in the work. The contract defines what you are owed, but recovery depends on what happens during performance — and what you do about it.
Agency direction, flawed specifications, late-disclosed information, and termination notices become losses you absorb — unless you identify the issue early, build the record, and act in time.
ANC subsidiaries need counsel who understand both the legal framework and the performance realities: remote projects, audits that surface years after performance, and termination decisions that may be wrong.
We help you recover what you are owed.
- T4D converted to T4C at COFC. The contracting officer terminated for default a runway apron paving and pavement-repair contract at Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora, Colorado. We appealed, and the court converted the T4D to a termination for convenience. Our client avoided excess reprocurement costs and recovered 100% of the amount sought in its termination settlement proposal.
Alutiiq Mfg. Contractors, LLC v. United States, 143 Fed. Cl. 689 (2019), appeal dismissed, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 40908 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 15, 2019). - $1.74M ASBCA recovery on summary judgment. Counsel for Alutiiq on a Tinker Air Force Base civil-engineering services contract. After a revised collective bargaining agreement took effect during performance, and the agency refused to pay certain increased costs, we appealed and won summary judgment entitling the contractor to a price adjustment.
Appeal of Alutiiq Commercial Enters., LLC, ASBCA No. 61503, 2020-1 B.C.A. (CCH) ¶ 37,506 (Jan. 9, 2020). - $2.8M recovery on constructive termination. The government issued a modification removing the final 29% of contract work and tried to recoup an alleged overpayment from our client. We alleged the government constructively terminated the contract for convenience and filed suit at the Court of Federal Claims. The DOJ conceded it was a constructive termination and settled the case. Instead of paying the agency’s recoupment demand, our client recovered $2.8 million.
- $1M settlement and a contract modification. Our client performed a DHS Protective Security Officer services contract. The solicitation required offerors to use a DHS-prepared spreadsheet for fully burdened labor rates; our client used it as written. DHS then rejected invoices billing those same rates and denied the resulting claim. We appealed to the Court of Federal Claims. Before the government filed its answer, the case settled for $1 million plus a contract modification authorizing our client to bill and recover the rates it had originally proposed.
Results
Representative matters.
Eligibility
- Size appeal won; $2.5B SEC iPASS 2.0 8(a) IDIQ preserved. OHA granted C2 Alaska’s appeal from the area-office size determination, vacated, and remanded. Area office reversed its decision and client kept the contract.
Size Appeal of C2 Alaska, LLC, SBA No. SIZ-6149 (2022). - PacArctic size appeal denied at OHA. Size protest at the area office targeting PacArctic’s award of a Navy Strategic Systems Programs financial-management 8(a) set-aside; OHA denied PacArctic’s appeal and affirmed.
Size Appeal of PacArctic, LLC, SBA No. SIZ-6105 (2021).
Award
- SEC iPASS 2.0; protest denied on every ground at GAO. We prepared comments on the Agency Report defending the $2.5B 8(a) IDIQ award; GAO denied the protest in full.
- Minneapolis maintenance award protected (B-419293). We intervened at GAO. GAO dismissed the protester’s initial allegations as premature, the supplemental allegations as untimely, and held the protester was not an interested party. Our client kept the award.
- $30M Fort Benning barracks task order defended (B-408890). We intervened at GAO. GAO held the Corps’ questions were clarifications, not discussions, and denied the protest.
- Army Corps maintenance services (B-423979). We filed a post-award protest for Chenega challenging the evaluation. The Corps terminated the awarded contract, amended the RFP, and re-issued the solicitation. Our client received the resulting award.
- 711th Human Performance Wing IDIQ (B-419123). We filed a post-award protest for Ajanta. The Air Force agreed to reevaluate every offeror’s technical volume on the contested subfactors and to issue additional awards. GAO dismissed as academic. The agency issued an award to our client.
Performance
- T4D converted to T4C at COFC. We appealed and the court converted the default termination into a termination for convenience. Our client avoided excess reprocurement costs and recovered 100% of the amount sought in its termination settlement proposal.
Alutiiq Mfg. Contractors, LLC v. United States, 143 Fed. Cl. 689 (2019). - $1.74M ASBCA recovery on summary judgment. Won summary judgment entitling the contractor to a price adjustment after a revised CBA took effect.
Appeal of Alutiiq Commercial Enters., LLC, ASBCA No. 61503, 2020-1 B.C.A. (CCH) ¶ 37,506 (Jan. 9, 2020). - $2.8M recovery on constructive termination. GSA issued a modification removing the final 29% of contract work and tried to recoup an alleged overpayment from our client. We recovered $2.8M using a constructive termination for convenience theory.
- $1M settlement and contract modification. DHS rejected invoices billing labor rates derived from the DHS-prepared pricing spreadsheet the solicitation required offerors to use. We appealed and settled the case, recovered $1 million, and obtained a contract modification authorizing the rates our client had originally proposed.