The changes to the SBA sponsorship programmes and the Joint Undertaking rules in the Final Rule are significant and should be subject to thorough consideration by all public contractors. In addition to these substantial changes, the final rule contained several other important changes that we will write more about in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the protected must qualify as small, in accordance with their primary North American industrial classification system. If the protégé wants to develop into a second code, he must identify this code as a code in which he seeks help for business development. However, this is not a pass to enter a new market, as “the SBA does not allow a mentor-protected relationship in a secondary code where the company has no previous experience,” the rules read. If a mentor-protégé joint venture intends to offer both small and small business contracts and socio-economic contracts, joint ventures must ensure that the “correct” provisions are included in the JV agreement for each offer. This can be achieved by using carefully crafted language in the Joint Undertaking Agreement or by simply forming two unen equipped Joint Undertakings: one for set-aside monitoring for small enterprises; the other to monitor socio-economic contracts. The SBA has not made appropriate changes to the Joint Undertaking rules for the four major socio-economic programmes of the SBA, which means that a Joint Undertaking Agreement in accordance with the Small Business Closure Rules may not be valid if the Joint Undertaking follows contracts 8(a), SDVOSB/VOSB, HUBZone or WOSB/EDWOSB (and vice versa). Under the new Small Business Administration (SBA) rules, which are expected to take effect on November 16, 2020, mentor-protégé (JVs) joint ventures will be different. While this is not a large-scale change, they do give more flexibility to joint ventures….