Stupid question, but that's the beauty of posting as "anonymous."
Is a contractor's certification (or representation) made for the entire company or the business unit making the cert? For large conpanies like GE, a company-wide cert would require gathering information from divisions making household appliances, medical imaging devices, etc., not to mention NBC.

By joel hoffman on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 02:16 pm:

Generally the Division that the certifier works for. If the certifier is a "sales engineer" or VP of Sales, you can take the cert. to the bathroom and make good use of it. I always ask for certs. from the Engineering Dept. happy sails! joel

By joel hoffman on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 02:18 pm:

...or the manufacturing/production dept. or QA Dept. happy sails! joel

By Anonymous on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 04:47 pm:

Hmmm. Not sure I agree with Joel on this one. Assuming the original question relates to reps & certs in general, I think most of them start out by saying something like "the offeror certifies [or represents] that it . . . ." See, e.g., FAR 52.212-3(c) and 52.222-25. I have always understood this to mean (and literally I think it does mean) that the cert applies to the entire offeror entity (which may be an entire corporation or may be an unincorporated division).

Limiting certs/reps to the division that the certifier works for sounds strange (and even potentially deceptive given the language of the cert).

By Orig Anon on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 05:17 pm:

Anon 447, Thanks. Given the literal language of each rep and cert, that's what I suspected. However, it seems to be almost impossible for a large, diversified corporation to make an accurate cert for its entire entity.
If anyone thinks it applies only to a division, can you supply a cite or reference?

By anon1 on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 06:29 pm:

Original Anonymous:
Though I've only been in the Government arena for 22 years (not as long as those really old guys-Joel and Vern-just kidding guys!-I was a cop for 9 years before that), I don't think your question was stupid at all, it made me halt for a few, the beauty of this forum.

I think it might be a what-if type of answer. In general, if you look at the topics for each of the reps and certs, it would appear that they apply to the whole company-hate to say that, but true. However, in certain areas, such as woman owned or minority owned certification, what if a large company only owns a % of the certifying company and it does not own a controlling interest by definition under SDB auspices-Weird, I know but possible. Then that particular entity should be able to certify on its own. In general, however, I believe it represents the company as a whole-What do you think Vern and Joel, Joel, I think I got your joke. You really have to get to a real ocean-Regards

By Anonymous on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 06:53 pm:

Anon 4:47 here. To the original Anon questioner, I agree that if the offeror is a big company like GE (your example), this could be a temendous burden. Realistically, however, it is quite rare (in my experience) that a company like GE (or Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, etc.) is the offeror. Instead, it is usually a DIVISION of the big corporation that is the offeror. And the resulting contract is properly awarded to the DIVISION, not to the huge corporation.

Just look in the ASBCA reporters and you'll find confirmation of this -- not only in the case names (e.g., "Appeal of XYZ Corp., ABC Division"), but also in a few decisions themselves. There are some old cases where the boards struggled with the question of whether a contract that on its face was awarded to an unincorporated division should be deemed to have been awarded (1) only to the division, or (2) to the larger corporation (as I recall, these cases came up in the context of the old CDA claim certification that was done away with in the mid-90s), and I believe the majority of the decisions concluded that, if the offeror identified itself as a division, and the contractor's name in the "Name" block of the contract was a division, the legal "contractor" was the division, not the larger corporation.

In such a case -- where the offeror is an unincorporated division (or some entity other than the big corporation) -- in my opinion the cert would cover the division only (assuming the cert requires the "offeror" to certify that "it" meets some standard). The primary authority for this is the language of the cert itself.

By Vern Edwards on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 10:57 pm:

It's not a stupid question at all. In fact, it's a very good question. However, I don't think the question has an across-the-board answer. I think that each representation or certification is different and that the required response must be determined case by case.

For instance, the certificate of independent price determination in FAR 52.203-2 probably applies to the busines unit, if the business unit is setting the proposed price. However, the small business representation in FAR 52.219-1 pretty clearly applies to the entire company, not just to the business unit that is submitting the proposal, since business units are not independently owned. I would also think that the certification and disclosure in FAR 52.203-11 regarding payments to influence certain Federal transactions also applies to the entire company.

Joel, I think your answer was a little hasty. Can you produce any support for your assertion about what is "generally" true?

By Mike Wolff on Monday, March 11, 2002 - 08:59 am:

I've always believed that the reps & certs must be submitted for the legal entity making the offer. For example, a subsidiary of GE would provide R&C for that legal entity only. However, a mere division in a company, which in and of itself, is not a separate legal entity would have to submit the R&C for the entity it is a division in.

Mike

By pizoof on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 05:08 pm:

The offeror.

By joel hoffman on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 05:36 pm:

Just got back to this thread. Sorry, I thought the original question referred to a certification after award, concerning products, e.g., on a construction contract. In my March 8 post, I wasn't referring to reps and certs submitted with an offer or bid. happy sails! joel