§ 121.103 - How does SBA determine affiliation?

§ 121.103 How does SBA determine affiliation?

Cross Reference

Link to an amendment published at 89 FR 3549, Jan. 19, 2024.

(a) General Principles of Affiliation.

(1) Concerns and entities are affiliates of each other when one controls or has the power to control the other, or a third party or parties controls or has the power to control both. It does not matter whether control is exercised, so long as the power to control exists.

(2) SBA considers factors such as ownership, management, previous relationships with or ties to another concern, and contractual relationships, in determining whether affiliation exists.

(3) Control may be affirmative or negative. Negative control includes, but is not limited to, instances where a minority shareholder has the ability, under the concern's charter, by-laws, or shareholder's agreement, to prevent a quorum or otherwise block action by the board of directors or shareholders.

(4) Affiliation may be found where an individual, concern, or entity exercises control indirectly through a third party.

(5) In determining whether affiliation exists, SBA will consider the totality of the circumstances, and may find affiliation even though no single factor is sufficient to constitute affiliation.

(6) In determining the concern's size, SBA counts the receipts, employees, or other measure of size of the concern whose size is at issue and all of its domestic and foreign affiliates, regardless of whether the affiliates are organized for profit.

(7) For SBA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, the bases for affiliation are set forth in § 121.702.

(8) For applicants in SBA's Business Loan, Disaster Loan, and Surety Bond Guarantee Programs, the size standards and bases for affiliation are set forth in § 121.301.

(b) Exceptions to affiliation coverage.

(1) Business concerns owned in whole or substantial part either by investment companies licensed, or by development companies qualifying, under the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, as amended, or by investment companies to which a Reinvestor SBIC (within the meaning of 13 CFR 107.720(a)(2)) has provided a meaningful percentage of Equity Capital are not considered affiliates of such investment companies or development companies.

(2)

(i) Business concerns owned and controlled by Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) organized pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), Native Hawaiian Organizations (NHOs), Community Development Corporations (CDCs) authorized by 42 U.S.C. 9805, or wholly-owned entities of Indian Tribes, ANCs, NHOs, or CDCs are not considered affiliates of such entities.

(ii) Business concerns owned and controlled by Indian Tribes, ANCs, NHOs, CDCs, or wholly-owned entities of Indian Tribes, ANCs, NHOs, or CDCs, are not considered to be affiliated with other concerns owned by these entities because of their common ownership or common management. In addition, affiliation will not be found based upon the performance of common administrative services so long as adequate payment is provided for those services. Affiliation may be found for other reasons.

(A) Common administrative services which are subject to the exception to affiliation include, bookkeeping, payroll, recruiting, other human resource support, cleaning services, and other duties which are otherwise unrelated to contract performance or management and can be reasonably pooled or otherwise performed by a holding company, parent entity, or sister business concern without interfering with the control of the subject firm.

(B) Contract administration services include both services that could be considered “common administrative services” under the exception to affiliation and those that could not.

(1) Contract administration services that encompass actual and direct day-to-day oversight and control of the performance of a contract/project are not shared common administrative services, and would include tasks or functions such as negotiating directly with the government agency regarding proposal terms, contract terms, scope and modifications, project scheduling, hiring and firing of employees, and overall responsibility for the day-to-day and overall project and contract completion.

(2) Contract administration services that are administrative in nature may constitute administrative services that can be shared, and would fall within the exception to affiliation. These administrative services include tasks such as record retention not related to a specific contract (e.g., employee time and attendance records), maintenance of databases for awarded contracts, monitoring for regulatory compliance, template development, and assisting accounting with invoice preparation as needed.

(C) Business development may include both services that could be considered “common administrative services” under the exception to affiliation and those that could not. Efforts at the holding company or parent level to identify possible procurement opportunities for specific subsidiary companies may properly be considered “common administrative services” under the exception to affiliation. However, at some point the opportunity identified by the holding company's or parent entity's business development efforts becomes concrete enough to assign to a subsidiary and at that point the subsidiary must be involved in the business development efforts for such opportunity. At the proposal or bid preparation stage of business development, the appropriate subsidiary company for the opportunity has been identified and a representative of that company must be involved in preparing an appropriate offer. This does not mean to imply that one or more representatives of a holding company or parent entity cannot also be involved in preparing an offer. They may be involved in assisting with preparing the generic part of an offer, but the specific subsidiary that intends to ultimately perform the contract must control the technical and contract specific portions of preparing an offer. In addition, once award is made, employee assignments and the logistics for contract performance must be controlled by the specific subsidiary company and should not be performed at a holding company or parent entity level.

(3) Business concerns which are part of an SBA approved pool of concerns for a joint program of research and development or for defense production as authorized by the Small Business Act are not affiliates of one another because of the pool.

(4) Business concerns which lease employees from concerns primarily engaged in leasing employees to other businesses or which enter into a co-employer arrangement with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) are not affiliated with the leasing company or PEO solely on the basis of a leasing agreement.

(5) For financial, management or technical assistance under the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, as amended, (an applicant is not affiliated with the investors listed in paragraphs (b)(5) (i) through (vi) of this section.

(i) Venture capital operating companies, as defined in the U.S. Department of Labor regulations found at 29 CFR 2510.3–101(d);

(ii) Employee benefit or pension plans established and maintained by the Federal government or any state, or their political subdivisions, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, for the benefit of employees;

(iii) Employee benefit or pension plans within the meaning of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (29 U.S.C. 1001, et seq.);

(iv) Charitable trusts, foundations, endowments, or similar organizations exempt from Federal income taxation under section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (26 U.S.C. 501(c));

(v) Investment companies registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (1940 Act) (15 U.S.C. 80a-1, et seq.); and

(vi) Entities determined by SBA to be Traditional Investment Companies under 13 CFR 107.150(b)(2) and private funds exempt from registration under section 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7) of the 1940 Act.

(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. Similarly, a protégé firm is not affiliated with its mentor solely because the protégé firm receives assistance from the mentor under a federal mentor-protégé program where an exception to affiliation is specifically authorized by statute or by SBA under the procedures set forth in § 121.903. Affiliation may be found in either case for other reasons as set forth in this section.

(7) The member shareholders of a small agricultural cooperative, as defined in the Agricultural Marketing Act (12 U.S.C. 1141j), are not considered affiliated with the cooperative by virtue of their membership in the cooperative.

(8) These exceptions to affiliation and any others set forth in § 121.702 apply for purposes of SBA's SBIR and STTR programs.

(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. The agency shall evaluate the offer in the same manner as other offers with due consideration of the capabilities of the subcontractors.

(10)

(i) The relationship of a faith-based organization to another organization is not considered an affiliation with the other organization under this subpart if the relationship is based on a religious teaching or belief or otherwise constitutes a part of the exercise of religion. In addition, the eligibility criteria set forth in 15 U.S.C. 636(a)(36)(D) are satisfied for any faith-based organization having not more than 500 employees (including individuals employed on a full-time, part-time, or other basis) that pays Federal payroll taxes using its own Internal Revenue Service Employer Identification Number (EIN) or that would support a deduction under the second sentence of 26 U.S.C. 512(b)(12) if the organization generated unrelated business taxable income. For purposes of this paragraph (b)(10), the term “faith-based organization” includes, but is not limited to, any organization associated with a church or convention or association of churches within the meaning of 26 U.S.C. 414(e)(3)(D). The term “organization” has the meaning given in 26 U.S.C. 414(m)(6)(A). The terms “church” and “convention or association of churches” have the same meaning that they have in 26 U.S.C. 414.

(ii) No specific process or filing is necessary to claim the benefit of the exemption in paragraph (b)(10)(i) of this section. In applying for a loan under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a faith-based organization may make all necessary certifications with respect to common ownership or management or other eligibility criteria based upon affiliation, if the organization would be an eligible borrower but for application of SBA affiliation rules and if the organization falls within the terms of the exemption described in paragraph (b)(10)(i) of this section. If a faith-based organization indicates any relationship that may pertain to affiliation, such as ownership of, ownership by, or common management with any other organization, on or in connection with a loan application, and if the faith-based organization applying for a loan falls within the terms of the exemption described in paragraph (b)(10)(i) of this section with respect to that relationship, the faith-based organization may indicate on a separate sheet that it is entitled to the exemption. That sheet may be identified as addendum A, and no further listing of the other organization or description of the relationship to that organization is required. See appendix A to this part for a sample “Addendum A”, but the format need not be used as long as the substance is the same.

(c) Affiliation based on stock ownership.

(1) A person (including any individual, concern or other entity) that owns, or has the power to control, 50 percent or more of a concern's voting stock, or a block of voting stock which is large compared to other outstanding blocks of voting stock, controls or has the power to control the concern.

(2) If two or more persons (including any individual, concern or other entity) each owns, controls, or has the power to control less than 50 percent of a concern's voting stock, and such minority holdings are equal or approximately equal in size, and the aggregate of these minority holdings is large as compared with any other stock holding, SBA presumes that each such person controls or has the power to control the concern whose size is at issue. This presumption may be rebutted by a showing that such control or power to control does not in fact exist.

(3) If a concern's voting stock is widely held and no single block of stock is large as compared with all other stock holdings, the concern's Board of Directors and CEO or President will be deemed to have the power to control the concern in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

(d) Affiliation arising under stock options, convertible securities, and agreements to merge.

(1) In determining size, SBA considers stock options, convertible securities, and agreements to merge (including agreements in principle) to have a present effect on the power to control a concern. SBA treats such options, convertible securities, and agreements as though the rights granted have been exercised.

(2) Agreements to open or continue negotiations towards the possibility of a merger or a sale of stock at some later date are not considered “agreements in principle” and are thus not given present effect.

(3) Options, convertible securities, and agreements that are subject to conditions precedent which are incapable of fulfillment, speculative, conjectural, or unenforceable under state or Federal law, or where the probability of the transaction (or exercise of the rights) occurring is shown to be extremely remote, are not given present effect.

(4) An individual, concern or other entity that controls one or more other concerns cannot use options, convertible securities, or agreements to appear to terminate such control before actually doing so. SBA will not give present effect to individuals', concerns' or other entities' ability to divest all or part of their ownership interest in order to avoid a finding of affiliation.

(e) Affiliation based on common management. Affiliation arises where one or more officers, directors, managing members, or partners who control the board of directors and/or management of one concern also control the board of directors or management of one or more other concerns.

(f) Affiliation based on identity of interest. Affiliation may arise among two or more persons with an identity of interest. Individuals or firms that have identical or substantially identical business or economic interests (such as family members, individuals or firms with common investments, or firms that are economically dependent through contractual or other relationships) may be treated as one party with such interests aggregated. Where SBA determines that such interests should be aggregated, an individual or firm may rebut that determination with evidence showing that the interests deemed to be one are in fact separate.

(1) Firms owned or controlled by married couples, parties to a civil union, parents, children, and siblings are presumed to be affiliated with each other if they conduct business with each other, such as subcontracts or joint ventures or share or provide loans, resources, equipment, locations or employees with one another. This presumption may be overcome by showing a clear line of fracture between the concerns. Other types of familial relationships are not grounds for affiliation on family relationships.

(2) SBA may presume an identity of interest based upon economic dependence if the concern in question derived 70% or more of its receipts from another concern over the previous three fiscal years.

(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.

(ii) A business concern owned and controlled by an Indian Tribe, ANC, NHO, CDC, or by a wholly-owned entity of an Indian Tribe, ANC, NHO, or CDC, is not considered to be affiliated with another concern owned by that entity based solely on the contractual relations between the two concerns.

Example 1 to paragraph (f).

Firm A has been in business for 9 months and has two contracts. Contract 1 is with Firm B and is valued at $900,000 and Contract 2 is with Firm C and is valued at $200,000. Thus, Firm B accounts for over 70% of Firm A's receipts. Absent other connections between A and B, the presumption of affiliation between A and B is rebutted because A is a new firm.

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. A concern may rebut such an affiliation determination by demonstrating a clear line of fracture between the two concerns. A “key employee” is an employee who, because of his/her position in the concern, has a critical influence in or substantive control over the operations or management of the concern.

(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 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. However, a joint venture may be issued an order under a previously awarded contract beyond the two-year period. 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 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 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 may lead to a finding of general affiliation between and among them. SBA may also determine that the relationship between a prime contractor and its subcontractor is a joint venture pursuant to paragraph (h)(3) 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 3, XY receives its fifth 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) Form of joint venture. 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 or agreement; and may be in the form of a formal or informal partnership or exist as a separate limited liability company or other separate legal entity.

(i) If a joint venture exists as a formal separate legal entity, it cannot be populated with individuals intended to perform contracts awarded to the joint venture for any contract or agreement which is set aside or reserved for small business, unless all parties to the joint venture are similarly situated as that term is defined in part 125 of this chapter (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).

(ii) A populated joint venture that is not comprised entirely of similarly situated entities will be ineligible for any contract or agreement which is set aside or reserved for small business.

(iii) In determining the size of a populated joint venture (whether one involving similarly situated entities or not), SBA will aggregate the revenues or employees of all partners to the joint venture.

(2) Size of joint ventures.

(i) A joint venture of two or more business concerns may submit an offer as a small business for a Federal procurement, subcontract or sale so long as each concern is small under the size standard corresponding to the NAICS code assigned to the contract. For a competitive 8(a) procurement, a joint venture between an 8(a) Participant and one or more other small business concerns (including two firms approved by SBA to be a mentor and protégé under § 125.9 of this chapter) must also meet the requirements of § 124.513(c) and (d) of this chapter as of the date of the final proposal revision for negotiated acquisitions and final bid for sealed bidding in order to be eligible for award.

(ii) Two firms approved by SBA to be a mentor and protégé under § 125.9 of this chapter may joint venture as a small business for any Federal government prime contract or subcontract, provided the protégé qualifies as small for the size standard corresponding to the NAICS code assigned to the procurement, and the joint venture meets the requirements of § 124.513 (c) and (d), § 125.8(b) and (c), § 128.402(c) and (d), § 126.616(c) and (d), or § 127.506(c) and (d) of this chapter, as appropriate. 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, as of the date of the final proposal revision for negotiated acquisitions and final bid for sealed bidding. 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.

(3) Ostensible subcontractors. A contractor and its ostensible subcontractor are treated as joint venturers for size determination purposes. An ostensible subcontractor is a subcontractor that is not a similarly situated entity, as that term is defined in § 125.1 of this chapter, and performs primary and vital requirements of a contract, or of an order, or is a subcontractor upon which the prime contractor is unusually reliant. As long as each concern is small under the size standard corresponding to the NAICS code assigned to the contract (or the prime contractor is small if the subcontractor is the SBA-approved mentor to the prime contractor), the arrangement will qualify as a small business.

(i) All aspects of the relationship between the prime and subcontractor are considered, including, but not limited to, the terms of the proposal (such as contract management, transfer of the subcontractor's incumbent managers, technical responsibilities, and the percentage of subcontracted work), agreements between the prime and subcontractor (such as bonding assistance or the teaming agreement), whether the subcontractor is the incumbent contractor and is ineligible to submit a proposal because it exceeds the applicable size standard for that solicitation, and whether the prime contractor relies solely on the subcontractor's experience because it lacks any relevant experience of its own. No one factor is determinative.

(ii) A prime contractor may use the experience and past performance of a subcontractor to enhance or strengthen its offer, including that of an incumbent contractor. It is only where that subcontractor will perform primary and vital requirements of a contract or order, or the prime contractor is unusually reliant on the subcontractor, that SBA will find the subcontractor to be an ostensible subcontractor.

(iii) In the case of a contract or order set-aside or reserved for small business for services, specialty trade construction or supplies, SBA will find that a small business prime contractor is performing the primary and vital requirements of the contract or order, and is not unduly reliant on one or more subcontractors that are not small businesses, where the prime contractor can demonstrate that it, together with any subcontractors that qualify as small businesses, will meet the limitations on subcontracting provisions set forth in § 125.6 of this chapter.

(iv) In a general construction contract, the primary and vital requirements of the contract are the management, supervision and oversight of the project, including coordinating the work of various subcontractors, not the actual construction work performed.

(4) Receipts/employees attributable to joint venture partners. For size purposes, a concern must include in its receipts its proportionate share of joint venture receipts. Proportionate receipts do not include proceeds from transactions between the concern and its joint ventures (e.g., subcontracts from a joint venture entity to joint venture partners) already accounted for in the concern's tax return. In determining the number of employees, a concern must include in its total number of employees its proportionate share of individuals employed by the joint venture. 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 a populated joint venture (where work is performed by the joint venture entity itself and not by the individual joint venture partners) the appropriate share is the same percentage as the joint venture partner's percentage ownership share in 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 counts.

(5) 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.

(i) Affiliation based on franchise and license agreements. The restraints imposed on a franchisee or licensee by its franchise or license agreement relating to standardized quality, advertising, accounting format and other similar provisions, generally will not be considered in determining whether the franchisor or licensor is affiliated with the franchisee or licensee provided the franchisee or licensee has the right to profit from its efforts and bears the risk of loss commensurate with ownership. Affiliation may arise, however, through other means, such as common ownership, common management or excessive restrictions upon the sale of the franchise interest.

[61 FR 3286, Jan. 31, 1996]

Editorial Note

Editorial Note:

For Federal Register citations affecting § 121.103, see the List of CFR Sections Affected, which appears in the Finding Aids section of the printed volume and at www.govinfo.gov.