DO HUBZONE COMPANIES HAVE PRIORITY OVER SDVOSBS?
No. President Obama signed the Small Business Jobs & Credit Act of 2010 into law on September 27, putting an end to the controversy about whether the HUBZone Program has priority over the other federal contracting set-aside programs. The new law has amended the wording in the Small Business Act that previously stated that ‘a contracting opportunity shall be awarded’ to a HUBZone firm if a reasonable expectation exists that two or more qualified HUBZone firms will submit offers (known as the Rule of Two). With the new law, ‘shall’ has become ‘may’, which parallels the wording for the 8(a) and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Programs and, therefore, brings all three major set-aside programs into parity.
