GovConVoices: Prime Management Of Subcontracts: Will ASBCA Decision Affect DCAA’s “Obsession”?

The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals recently dismissed a government claim that Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems, Inc. (LMIS), failed to comply with its prime contract terms by not adequately managing its subcontractors and therefore all subcontract costs (more than $100MM) were unallowable.

Although the government claim was directed at a large contractor, some of the amount in question, presumably, included invoiced amounts by small business subcontractors.  At least by implication, had the government prevailed, it could have resulted in requirements for prime contractors to become far more demanding and intrusive in terms of subcontractor documentation and/or access to subcontractor records.

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Cost Realism: Using Offeror’s Actual Rates Was Unobjectionable

In conducting a cost realism evaluation, an agency was entitled to use an offeror’s historic approved indirect rates and current incumbent direct labor rates to upwardly adjust the offeror’s evaluated cost, in a case where the offeror’s proposed rates were significantly lower.

The GAO recently held that an agency did not err by adjusting a protester’s rates to better align with the protester’s historic indirect rates and current direct rates, where the agency was unable to determine that the protester’s significantly lower proposed rates were realistic.

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