If you’ve been denied verification to the VA’s Veterans First Contracting Program (aka VetBiz), ever wonder who will know it? Well, according to recent guidance issued by the Office of Small Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU), it turns out this information will be disclosed in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Yesterday, I received an email from the Vendor Information Pages. (Presumably, this went out to all representatives and verified companies, but I’m not so sure about businesses that were denied verification). This email, titled “Update on Requirements for VA to Release Verification Information in Response to FOIA Requests,” included a memorandum that gave the quick and dirty on what information about (or provided by) VetBiz applicants will be released via FOIA requests.
Notably, the guidance stated that as it relates to firms found not eligible for the Veterans First Contracting Program, the following information will be released: the business name, DUNS number, address, business email addresses that do not identify an individual, VOSB or SDVOSB status, bonding level, and number of employees.
Under the letter of the law, any information maintained by the VA as a federal agency may be requested by any person pursuant to a FOIA request. Some exemptions apply, such as restrictions on disclosing commercially sensitive or proprietary information, and technically this information doesn’t seem to fall into an exemption. But from a practical perspective, this feels like disclosure of sensitive information. After all, a VOSB or SDVOSB that is competing for non-VA set-asides doesn’t want its competitors to know it was denied for the Veterans First Contracting Program.
And it’s not like these businesses are all pass-throughs or otherwise truly ineligible for the Program. Any business reading this (especially multi-member or owner) knows that the VetBiz verification process is hard. A business can be truly eligible but be denied, but a FOIA request does not disclose the reason for the denial – whether the business was found affiliated with a big company or whether it simply didn’t provide proper paperwork.
In practicality, unless one business is checking up on another, this FOIA policy likely won’t really impact a business. But still. Knowing that your denial can be disclosed is still disconcerting.
Access the new guidance here.
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Thanks for commenting on this. I was surprised by the email. Thought maybe someone was trying to get info on my company. It looks like it is a general letter explaining procedures they take. They may be stuck with the FOI requirements as to what is released.