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 capable of performing the contract, it will issue a COC. Upon receipt of
the COC, the Contracting Officer is required to award the subject contract
to the business. On the basis of SBA's favorable findings, the Contracting
Officer will sometimes award the contract to the business before the SBA
issues a COC. The SBA classifies such an award as a "direct award."
SBA and Department of Defense (DOD) officials apply somewhat different
standards assessing prior performance as an indicator of a business's
responsibility. DOD policy requires that when a firm was seriously
deficient in the past to perform on schedule through no fault of the
Government, the pre-award team is to make a "no award" recommendation. On
the other hand, SBA in its advocacy role is more willing to give a
prospective contractor the benefit of the doubt and is more lenient than DOD
when judging prior poor performance. SBA gives favorable consideration to
factors such as improved performance, unforeseen events causing past poor
performance, and actions taken to correct past poor performance. During the
COC review process, SBA will not conduct anewresponsibility review of the
prospective contractor. SBA will only evaluate the responsibility elements
(see 5-310) determined negatively by the Contracting Officer. The
Contracting Officer should include in his/her referral to SBA, not only a
record of poor past performance, but also identify those elements, such as
capacity or credit, which caused the prospective contractor's poor
performance. Failure to provide SBA with this information may result in SBA
not having sufficient grounds to deny a COC. If there are elements in the
proposed contract which NAVFACENGCOM considers critical, not only must they
be clearly spelled out in the solicitation, but also must be identified in
the documentation submitted by the Contracting Officer to SBA before SBA
will consider them during processing of the COC. If the contract contains
critical elements, but they are not a part of the reason for the finding of
nonresponsibility, then SBA will not consider them
In the event of disagreement between the Contracting Officer and SBA, the
Contracting Officer may request that SBA's regional office suspend action
and the matter be referred for review to SBA's central office. A formal
appeal may also be filled with SBA in the event of an adverse decision by
SBA's central office. In any event, the final decision on the issuance of a
COC rests with SBA.
Although the procurement regulations permit concurren t pre-award surveys for
those bidders in the range of award, SBA will only process one COC request
at a time. SBA reasons that if a COC is issued to the first prospective
contractor for whom a referral is made, this contractor will be awarded the
contract. Therefore, if concurrent surveys were made for the issuance of
COCs, there would be an unnecessary duplication of effort. Certificates of
competency are discussed in the FAR at subpart 19.6.
5-400 THE UNREALISTICALLY LOW BID
5-410 General . In sealed bid procurements, on occasion, a bid is
submitted which is significantly lower than what price analysis would
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