OHA Confirms M&A-Related Recertification Won’t Impact Contractor’s Eligibility Under Pre-Existing Contracts
PilieroMazza – For small businesses, navigating the recertification rules promulgated by the Small Business Administration is no easy task. If a concern undergoes a merger, sale, or acquisition, or novates its small business contract to another concern (each a Triggering Event), SBA regulations require the contractor to recertify its size. Recertification in connection with a Triggering Event “changes the firm’s status for future options and orders,” but the meaning of this was not clear until now. Two recent OHA cases confirm that a contractor’s recertification as other than small because of a Triggering Event precludes an agency from taking small business credit from that point forward, but it does not render the contractor ineligible for pending or future task orders set aside under pre-existing, long-term contracts.