GAO: Meaningful Discussions Must Disclose Proposal Weaknesses Discovered After a Corrective Action

Given the amount of competition in most solicitations, the ability of a contractor to receive feedback on its proposal can provide valuable information to help the contractor hone its response to best address the key factors sought by the agency in its solicitation. On those rare occasions when an agency reopens its solicitation and provides feedback to the individual offeror’s initial proposal, the contractor is provided such an opportunity–except when the contractor gets left out of the feedback party.

In a recent decision, an agency failed to disclose a flaw it first identified in its reevaluation of a contractor’s unchanged proposal after a corrective action. When the proposals were evaluated after the corrective action, the contractor ended up losing an award for which they were previously selected. As a result, the contractor filed a protest primarily asserting that, because the agency failed to provide feedback on its proposal, the agency’s evaluation of the proposal was unreasonable. GAO sustained the protest.

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Protester Goes Seven for Seven in Arguments Before GAO

Veterans of the bid protest process know that it’s not uncommon for a protester to make half a dozen arguments and prevail on only one.

Know what that’s called? A win. But when a protester goes seven for seven, you have to tip your cap.

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Contractor Proposes Unavailable Key Employee, GAO Sustains Protest

A contractor’s proposal to use an unavailable employee to fill a key personnel position caused the GAO to sustain a competitor’s protest.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO concluded that a offeror failed to satisfy a material solicitation requirement concerning key personnel where the employee included in the proposal left the offeror’s employment–and the agency knew that the employee was not available to perform the contract.

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