GAO Rules RFQ Requirement Unreasonably Restricted Competition

In recent GAO decision, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., B-418449 (Comp. Gen. May 18, 2020), GAO reminded the Marine Corps to make sure its RFQ requirements were reasonable—and in line with the underlying contract.

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GAO: Offeror’s High Labor Hours Need Not Be Raised In Discussions

An agency was not required to inform an offeror that its proposed base year labor hours were too high, even though the offeror proposed more than twice as many labor hours as the awardee.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that a procuring agency did not act improperly by failing to raise the protester’s high labor hours in discussions, because the protester’s labor hours, while much higher than the awardee’s, were not deemed unacceptably high under the RFQ’s lowest-price, technically acceptable evaluation scheme.

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Task Order Labor Categories Don’t Match Schedule Contract; GAO Sustains Protest

The GAO sustained a protest of the award of a GSA Schedule task order because the labor categories awarded under the task order were outside the scope of the awardee’s underlying GSA Schedule contract.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that the awardee’s GSA Schedule labor category–management analyst–did not align with the task order solicitation’s requirement for research analysts, general consultants, and legal administrative specialists.  As a result, the task order award was improper.

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GAO: 45-Minute Bid Confirmation Deadline Was Unreasonable

A procuring agency acted unreasonably by leaving a voicemail for a winning bidder requiring confirmation of the bid within 45 minutes of the voicemail.

In a recent GAO bid protest decision, the GAO found that the winning bidder had already confirmed its bid by responding to a Bid Validation request sent by the FedBid electronic reverse auction system.  Under these circumstances, the agency’s second request for a bid validation–with a very short response time–was improper.

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