When submitting bids, contractors should always double check their proposal submission methods, whether it be a designated portal, email, or any other method, and do so well before the deadline.
GAO recently had the opportunity to examine proposal submission issues related to a US Navy procurement, and did not show sympathy for the contractor who experienced proposal submission issues right at the deadline.
Continue readingA protester recently lost an effort to get an agency to consider a late proposal arguing that it was emailed to the agency on the due date.
Even though the quote would have been less expensive than the awardee’s and this was a lowest-price technically-acceptable procurement, GAO denied the protest finding that the email was a few hours late and did not include the attached quotation.
Continue readingOne might think that when an electronic proposal is received by a government server before the solicitation’s deadline, the proposal isn’t late. A government server is under government control, so the proposal is timely, right?
Not necessarily, at least the way the GAO sees it. As one contractor recently learned, waiting until the last minute to submit a proposal electronically carries significant risk that the proposal will not be considered timely, even if the proposal reaches the government server in time.
A procuring agency was not at fault when an offeror’s emailed proposal “bounced back” because of the large size of the email.
In a recent decision, the GAO applied the general rule that it is “an offeror’s responsibility to deliver its proposal to the proper place at the proper time” and held that the agency was not to blame when its email server rejected the large email containing the offeror’s proposal.