Insights

GAO’s key personnel rule is well-known—and often a source of frustration— amongst government contractors.  Proposed key personnel who become “unavailable” prior to contract award—especially where they have accepted employment with a different company—may doom an offeror’s proposal by rendering it noncompliant with solicitation requirements.  But GAO’s recent decision in FYI – For Your Information, Inc., B-423774, B-423774.2 (Dec. 19, 2025) provides some potential relief from that rule. 

GAO’s recent sustain of the protest filed by emissary LLC provides valuable lessons for potential offerors with respect to organizational conflict of interest (OCI) mitigation plans (and their impact on technical approach), as well as their descriptions of key personnel qualifications.

On August 7, 2025, the FAR Council issued a final rule amending FAR 52.204-7 to clarify that, effective immediately, an offeror’s failure to maintain continuous System for Award Management (SAM) registration between proposal submission and contract award does not render the offeror ineligible for award, so long as the offeror was registered in SAM at the time of proposal submission and is registered at the time of contract award. The final rule should address situations like TLS Joint Venture, LLC, B-422275, Apr. 1, 2024, 2024 CPD ¶ 74, where an offeror’s SAM registration lapsed for a single day between the proposal submission and award dates, and GAO found the offeror ineligible for award.

September 22, 2025; 12:00pm-1:00pmDevelopments in Caselaw Impacting Small Business Gov Con IssuesSpeakers: Olivia Lynch, Zachary Schroeder, Issac Schabes, Cherie OwenCrowell & Moring will address recent decisions from the Small Business Administration’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, Government Accountability Office, and Court of Federal Claims covering a range of topics including but not limited to: challenges involving size and status based on ostensible subcontractor affiliation; protests of awards to mentor-protégé joint ventures based on questions regarding the mentor-protégé agreement and joint venture corporate governance documents; protests concerning the evaluation of joint venture capabilities and past performance; protests of the evaluation of small business participation plans; and application of the Rule of Two.

Crowell & Moring will address individually small business size and each status that can be claimed in federal government contracting. We’ll cover: the eligibility requirements for each status; the certification process (if any); discussion of regulatory and statutory changes as well as any significant caselaw from 2021; and coming developments in 2022.

Join us for a webinar discussion of some of the big bid protest issues to watch in the coming year – both at GAO and the Court of Federal Claims. Our discussion will cover the following key areas:

Crowell & Moring’s “All Things Protest” podcast keeps you up to date on major trends in bid protest litigation, key developments in high-profile cases, and best practices in state and federal procurement. In this episode, host Christian Curran and guests Zachary Schroeder and Issac Schabes discuss two rare protest sustains—one from GAO involving a successful challenge to the scope of corrective action, and the other from the Court of Federal Claims finding that the agency abused its discretion in not allowing the protester to fix a minor proposal error through clarifications.