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(b) *  *  *

(6) A firm that has an SBA-approved mentor-protégé agreement authorized under §125.9 of this chapter is not affiliated with its mentor or protégé firm solely because the protégé firm receives assistance from the mentor under the agreement. *  *  *

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(9) In the case of a solicitation for a bundled contract or a Multiple Award Contract with a value in excess of the agency's substantial bundling threshold, a small business contractor may enter into a Small Business Teaming Arrangement with one or more small business subcontractors and submit an offer as a small business without regard to affiliation, so long as each team member is small for the size standard assigned to the contract or subcontract. *  *  *

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(f) *  *  *

(2) *  *  *

(i) This presumption may be rebutted by a showing that despite the contractual relations with another concern, the concern at issue is not solely dependent on that other concern, such as where the concern has been in business for a short amount of time and has only been able to secure a limited number of contracts or where the contractual relations do not restrict the concern in question from selling the same type of products or services to another purchaser.

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Example 2 to paragraph (f). Firm A has been in business for five years and has approximately 200 contracts. Of those contracts, 195 are with Firm B. The value of Firm A's contracts with Firm B is greater than 70% of its revenue over the previous three years. Unless Firm A can show that its contractual relations with Firm B do not restrict it from selling the same type of products or services to another purchaser, SBA would most likely find the two firms affiliated.

(g) Affiliation based on the newly organized concern rule. Except as provided in §124.109(c)(4)(iii), affiliation may arise where former or current officers, directors, principal stockholders, managing members, or key employees of one concern organize a new concern in the same or related industry or field of operation, and serve as the new concern's officers, directors, principal stockholders, managing members, or key employees, and the one concern is furnishing or will furnish the new concern with contracts, financial or technical assistance, indemnification on bid or performance bonds, and/or other facilities, whether for a fee or otherwise. *  *  *

(h) Affiliation based on joint ventures. A joint venture is an association of individuals and/or concerns with interests in any degree or proportion intending to engage in and carry out business ventures for joint profit over a two year period, for which purpose they combine their efforts, property, money, skill, or knowledge, but not on a continuing or permanent basis for conducting business generally. This means that a specific joint venture entity generally may not be awarded contracts beyond a two-year period, starting from the date of the award of the first contract, without the partners to the joint venture being deemed affiliated for the joint venture. Once a joint venture receives a contract, it may submit additional offers for a period of two years from the date of that first award. An individual joint venture may be awarded one or more contracts after that two-year period as long as it submitted an offer including price prior to the end of that two-year period. SBA will find joint venture partners to be affiliated, and thus will aggregate their receipts and/or employees in determining the size of the joint venture for all small business programs, where the joint venture submits an offer after two years from the date of the first award. The same two (or more) entities may create additional joint ventures, and each new joint venture entity may submit offers for a period of two years from the date of the first contract to the joint venture without the partners to the joint venture being deemed affiliates. At some point, however, such a longstanding inter-relationship or contractual dependence between the same joint venture partners will lead to a finding of general affiliation between and among them. A joint venture: Must be in writing; must do business under its own name and be identified as a joint venture in the System for Award Management (SAM) for the award of a prime contract; may be in the form of a formal or informal partnership or exist as a separate limited liability company or other separate legal entity; and, if it exists as a formal separate legal entity, may not be populated with individuals intended to perform contracts awarded to the joint venture (i.e., the joint venture may have its own separate employees to perform administrative functions, including one or more Facility Security Officer(s), but may not have its own separate employees to perform contracts awarded to the joint venture). SBA may also determine that the relationship between a prime contractor and its subcontractor is a joint venture pursuant to paragraph (h)(4) of this section. For purposes of this paragraph (h), contract refers to prime contracts, novations of prime contracts, and any subcontract in which the joint venture is treated as a similarly situated entity as the term is defined in part 125 of this chapter.

Example 1 to paragraph (h) introductory text. Joint Venture AB receives a contract on April 2, year 1. Joint Venture AB may receive additional contracts through April 2, year 3. On June 6, year 2, Joint Venture AB submits an offer for Solicitation 1. On July 13, year 2, Joint Venture AB submits an offer for Solicitation 2. On May 27, year 3, Joint Venture AB is found to be the apparent successful offeror for Solicitation 1. On July 22, year 3, Joint Venture AB is found to be the apparent successful offeror for Solicitation 2. Even though the award of the two contracts emanating from Solicitations 1 and 2 would occur after April 2, year 3, Joint Venture AB may receive those awards without causing general affiliation between its joint venture partners because the offers occurred prior to the expiration of the two-year period.

Example 2 to paragraph (h) introductory text. Joint Venture XY receives a contract on August 10, year 1. It may receive two additional contracts through August 10, year 3. On March 19, year 2, XY receives a second contract. It receives no other contract awards through August 10, year 3 and has submitted no additional offers prior to August 10, year 3. Because two years have passed since the date of the first contract award, after August 10, year 3, XY cannot receive an additional contract award. The individual parties to XY must form a new joint venture if they want to seek and be awarded additional contracts as a joint venture.

Example 3 to paragraph (h) introductory text. Joint Venture XY receives a contract on December 15, year 1. On May 22, year 3 XY submits an offer for Solicitation S. On December 8, year 3, XY submits a novation package for contracting officer approval for Contract C. In January, year 4 XY is found to be the apparent successful offeror for Solicitation S and the relevant contracting officer seeks to novate Contract C to XY. Because both the offer for Solicitation S and the novation package for Contract C were submitted prior to December 15 year 3, both contract award relating to Solicitation S and novation of Contract C may occur without a finding of general affiliation.

(1) Size of joint ventures.

(i) *  *  *

(ii) *  *  * Except for sole source 8(a) awards, the joint venture must meet the requirements of §124.513(c) and (d), §125.8(b) and (c), §125.18(b)(2) and (3), §126.616(c) and (d), or §127.506(c) and (d) of this chapter, as appropriate, at the time it submits its initial offer including price. For a sole source 8(a) award, the joint venture must demonstrate that it meets the requirements of §124.513(c) and (d) prior to the award of the contract.

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(2) Ostensible subcontractors. *  *  *

(3) Receipts/employees attributable to joint venture partners. For size purposes, a concern must include in its receipts its proportionate share of joint venture receipts, unless the proportionate share already is accounted for in receipts reflecting transactions between the concern and its joint ventures (e.g., subcontracts from a joint venture entity to joint venture partners). In determining the number of employees, a concern must include in its total number of employees its proportionate share of joint venture employees. For the calculation of receipts, the appropriate proportionate share is the same percentage of receipts or employees as the joint venture partner's percentage share of the work performed by the joint venture. For the calculation of employees, the appropriate share is the same percentage of employees as the joint venture partner's percentage ownership share in the joint venture, after first subtracting any joint venture employee already accounted for in one of the partner's employee count.

Example 1 to paragraph (h)(3). Joint Venture AB is awarded a contract for $10M. The joint venture will perform 50% of the work, with A performing $2M (40% of the 50%, or 20% of the total value of the contract) and B performing $3M (60% of the 50% or 30% of the total value of the contract). Since A will perform 40% of the work done by the joint venture, its share of the revenues for the entire contract is 40%, which means that the receipts from the contract awarded to Joint Venture AB that must be included in A's receipts for size purposes are $4M. A must add $4M to its receipts for size purposes, unless its receipts already account for the $4M in transactions between A and Joint Venture AB.

(4) Facility security clearances. A joint venture may be awarded a contract requiring a facility security clearance where either the joint venture itself or the individual partner(s) to the joint venture that will perform the necessary security work has (have) a facility security clearance.

(i) Where a facility security clearance is required to perform primary and vital requirements of a contract, the lead small business partner to the joint venture must possess the required facility security clearance.

(ii) Where the security portion of the contract requiring a facility security clearance is ancillary to the principal purpose of the procurement, the partner to the joint venture that will perform that work must possess the required facility security clearance.

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