What circumstances limit SBA's ability to accept a procurement for award as an 8(a) contract?

SBA will not accept a procurement for award as an 8(a) contract if the circumstances identified in paragraphs (a) through (d) of this section exist.

(a) Reservation as small business or SDB set-aside. The procuring activity issued a solicitation for or otherwise expressed publicly a clear intent to reserve the procurement as a small business or small disadvantaged business (SDB) set-aside prior to offering the requirement to SBA for award as an 8(a) contract. The AA/8(a)BD may permit the acceptance of the requirement, however, under extraordinary circumstances.

Example to paragraph (a). SBA may accept a requirement where a procuring activity made a decision to offer the requirement to the 8(a) BD program before the solicitation was sent out and the procuring activity acknowledges and documents that the solicitation was in error.

(b) Competition prior to offer and acceptance. The procuring activity competed a requirement among Participants prior to offering the requirement to SBA and receiving SBA's formal acceptance of the requirement.

(1) Any competition conducted without first obtaining SBA's formal acceptance of the procurement for the 8(a) BD program will not be considered an 8(a) competitive requirement.
(2) SBA may accept the requirement for the 8(a) BD program as a competitive 8(a) requirement, but only if the procuring activity agrees to resolicit the requirement using appropriate competitive 8(a) procedures.

(c) Adverse impact. SBA has made a written determination that acceptance of the procurement for 8(a) award would have an adverse impact on an individual small business, a group of small businesses located in a specific geographical location, or other small business programs. The adverse impact concept is designed to protect small business concerns which are performing Government contracts awarded outside the 8(a) BD program, and does not apply to follow-on or renewal 8(a) acquisitions. SBA will not consider adverse impact with respect to any requirement offered to the 8(a) program under Simplified Acquisition Procedures.

(1) In determining whether the acceptance of a requirement would have an adverse impact on an individual small business, SBA will consider all relevant factors.

(i) In connection with a specific small business, SBA presumes adverse impact to exist where:

(A) The small business concern has performed the specific requirement for at least 24 months;
(B) The small business is performing the requirement at the time it is offered to the 8(a) BD program, or its performance of the requirement ended within 30 days of the procuring activity's offer of the requirement to the 8(a) BD program; and
(C) The dollar value of the requirement that the small business is or was performing is 25 percent or more of its most recent annual gross sales (including those of its affiliates). For a multi-year requirement, the dollar value of the last 12 months of the requirement will be used to determine whether a small business would be adversely affected by SBA's acceptance.

(ii) Except as provided in paragraph (c)(2) of this section, adverse impact does not apply to “new” requirements. A new requirement is one which has not been previously procured by the relevant procuring activity.

(A) Where a requirement is new, no small business could have previously performed the requirement and, thus, SBA's acceptance of the requirement for the 8(a) BD program will not adversely impact any small business.

(B) Construction contracts, by their very nature (e.g., the building
of a specific structure), are deemed new requirements.
(C) The expansion or modification of an existing requirement will be considered a new requirement where the magnitude of change is significant enough to cause a price adjustment of at least 25 percent (adjusted for inflation) or to require significant additional or different types of capabilities or work.
(D) SBA need not perform an impact determination where a new requirement is offered to the 8(a) BD program.

(2) In determining whether the acceptance of a requirement would have an adverse impact on a group of small businesses, SBA will consider the effects of combining or consolidating various requirements being performed by two or more small business concerns into a single contract which would be considered a “new” requirement as compared to any of the previous smaller requirements. SBA may find adverse impact to exist if one of the existing small business contractors meets the presumption set forth in paragraph (c)(1)(i) of this section.

(3) In determining whether the acceptance of a requirement would have an adverse impact on other small business programs, SBA will consider allrelevant factors, including but not limited to, the number and value of contracts in the subject industry reserved for the 8(a) BD program as compared with other small business programs.

(d) Benchmark achievement. Where actual participation by disadvantaged businesses in a SIC Major Group exceeds the benchmark limitations established by the Department of Commerce for that Major Group, SBA may elect not to accept a requirement having a SIC code within the Major Group that is offered to SBA for award as an 8(a) contract. In determining whether to accept a requirement in such a case, SBA will consider the developmental needs of Participants and other anticipated contracting opportunities available to them.

(e) Release for non-8(a) competition. In limited instances, SBA may decline to accept the offer of a follow-on or renewal 8(a) acquisition to give a concern previously awarded the contract that is leaving or has left the 8(a) BD program the opportunity to compete for the requirement outside the 8(a) BD program.

(1) SBA will consider release only where:

(i) The procurement awarded through the 8(a) BD program is being or was performed by either a Participant whose program term will expire prior to contract completion, or, by a former Participant whose program term expired within one year of the date of the offering letter;
(ii) The concern requests in writing that SBA decline to accept the offer prior to SBA's acceptance of the requirement for award as an 8(a) contract; and
(iii) The concern qualifies as a small business for the requirement now offered to the 8(a) BD program.

(2) In considering release, SBA will balance the importance of the requirement to the concern's business development needs against the business development needs of other Participants that are qualified to perform the requirement. This determination will include consideration of whether rejection of the requirement would seriously reduce the pool of similar types of contracts available for award as 8(a) contracts. SBA will seek the views of the procuring activity.
(3) If SBA declines to accept the offer and releases the requirement, it will recommend to the procuring activity that the requirement be procured as a small business or, if authorized, an SDB set-aside.

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