On September 27, 2010, the President signed into law H.R. 5297, the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010—now P.L. 111-240. The new law is long and fairly complex. Rather than recap its many provisions that affect government contractors, we are going to link to an excellent summary by the law firm Venable LLP.

Go check out Venable’s summary. What? You’re too lazy to click the link? Okay, then here is a very brief list of some of the interesting items contained in the new public law. We are quoting from Venable. You should really go review their summary, instead of reading our recap of their recap.

• Contractors that misrepresent their size status are presumed to be liable for the amount which the government expends on a contract intended for small businesses.

• A contractor that believes in good faith that his company is small (based on his understanding of the affiliation rules and the calculation of annual receipts during the relevant period) will be ‘deemed’ to have affirmatively, willfully, and intentionally misrepresented the company’s size status if the company is not actually small.

• The law now requires all small businesses to recertify their size status on an annual basis through the Online Representations and Certifications Application.

• The new law imposes new past performance and potential non-responsibility consequences on prime contractors that fail to pay their subcontractors in a timely manner.

Now, doesn’t that make you want to go check out the details of the new law? It should. Remember the sad tale of GTSI Corporation, who has seen roughly three-quarters of its annual revenue put into jeopardy based on allegations of misrepresentation of business size status. You mess with socioeconomic reporting at your risk.

That’s always been the case—but now the law has more teeth in it.

Next step will be to open FAR Cases to implement the new statute in the Code of Federal Regulations. Watch for those proposed rules.

Here is a link to the Department of Energy's recap of the new law:  http://management.energy.gov/documents/AttachmentFlash2011-6%281%29.pdf