Insights

Washington – June 26, 2025: Crowell & Moring has been recommended in eight practice areas in the 18th edition of the Legal 500 United States. In addition, partner Daniel Forman, co-chair of the firm’s Government Contracts Group, has been named to the Legal 500’s “Hall of Fame” for Government Contracts.

Washington – December 3, 2024: The Washingtonian has named five Crowell & Moring partners to its 2024 “Top Lawyers” list, featuring the D.C. area’s best legal talent.

As we previously reported, on January 16, 2026, the Department of War (DoW) announced an audit of 8(a) sole source awards over $20 million, joining the previously-announced audits by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and U.S. Treasury Department (discussed here and here).  A DoW memorandum also dated January 16, 2026 but only recently made public reveals that this audit is much broader in than originally announced.  Any active 8(a) sole source contract, 8(a) set-aside contract, or small business set-aside contract over $20 million is under scrutiny. 

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has rolled out changes to its 8(a) Program even as it suspends 8(a) participants for failure to respond to the SBA’s December 5, 2025 8(a) audit letters.

On January 16, 2026, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted a video on social media outlining the U.S. Department of War’s (DoW) plan to combat fraud, waste, and abuse in the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 8(a) Business Development Program. 

On Tuesday, April 5, 2020 at 3 p.m. Eastern, Ken Dodds of Live Oak Bank, a leading SBA lender, will join Crowell & Moring attorneys and policy advisors in a webinar addressing the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).  Just over a week after the creation of this lifeline small business loan platform, the webinar will address updates to program eligibility, the current SBA Form 2483 borrower application, and loan calculations and forgiveness based on the SBA’s interim final rules and guidance that have been issued in the past week. 

When competing for business with the federal government today, small business status can be the “Golden Ticket” for threshold eligibility for a government contract or provide a competitive edge to securing a government contract as either a prime or subcontractor. However, when relationships are formed between a small business and another contractor (large or small), preserving that prized status is challenging, yet essential to maintaining that competitive advantage. Players of all sizes must understand when and how companies or individuals will be considered “affiliated” for size purposes in order to structure the proposed business relationship to maximize synergies, but avoid affiliation and loss of small business status. This is a true balancing act. Many of the rules and requirements are counter-intuitive, but a small business finding itself on the wrong side of the affiliation line could jeopardize its ability to compete for valuable business opportunities. 

The MCCA’s Creating Pathways to Diversity conference is designed to provide the practical tools and resources that attorneys, both in-house and at outside law firms, need to further their personal career growth and sustain organizational diversity and inclusion efforts.  Conference highlights include an opening plenary session featuring the General Counsels of Gap Inc., NBCUniversal, The Rockefeller Group and Showtime Networks and a luncheon plenary honoring the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the 50th anniversary of landmark 1964 civil rights legislation and featuring, among other speakers, Charles Hamilton Houston III.

The federal government has identified purported ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ in small business programs as a major focus of its current enforcement efforts. As it relates to federal procurement, we have seen audits and investigations rolled out not only of active participants in the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program but also reviews of various types of small business contracts (such as 8(a) sole source and set-aside awards, preference-based awards, and small business set-aside awards over particular values). Join Crowell & Moring as we discuss what aspects of contract performance and teaming arrangements are being scrutinized (e.g., size/status eligibility, limitations on subcontracting compliance, reasonableness of market rates, etc.) and how these considerations can impact both small government contractors holding the prime contracts under review and their subcontractors. 

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.

In this episode, hosts Rob Sneckenberg and Olivia Lynch are joined by colleague Amy O’Sullivan to discuss the Court of Federal Claims’ recent decision in HWI Gear, Inc., which held that the solicitation’s inclusion in full of the text of FAR 52.219-28 required a small business offeror to recertify its size status prior to award due to a post-proposal submission corporate change. 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.