Agencies must draft solicitations and RFPs with enough detail that prospective offerors can determine if they are qualified to perform the work as well as be able to submit an educated offer.
But how much detail is the agency required to provide in a solicitation? In some cases, GAO has allowed fairly generic language to suffice.
Continue readingGAO defers to agencies on many issues related to their procurements. But GAO will intervene when an agency says one thing, in a solicitation, but does another when it evaluates proposals. In other words, GAO will sustain protests when the agencies disregard their own evaluation criteria outlined in a solicitation.
Otherwise, the agency might–even inadvertently–evaluate proposals unequally–a situation that a just and fair procurement system must avoid.
Continue readingHappy Holidays! Between all the shopping, baking, and decking the halls, it seems to be the busiest day of the year.
As we write this post, the federal government is on the verge of a partial shutdown. On behalf of our clients and friends, we hope that doesn’t happen.
In this edition of the Week In Review, there is a lot of criticism regarding government spending, the Pentagon gets a reminder to pay attention to its contractors, and the battle between Amazon and defense officials gets messy.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours!
Continue readingTo file a viable bid protest at GAO, the protester must be an “interested party.” Intuition might say that an awardee under a multiple-award vehicle like a blanket purchase agreement should be able to protest other awardees, right?
The GAO recently held otherwise.
Continue readingThe Small Business Administration Office of Hearings and Appeals has denied a protest of the service-disabled veteran-owned small business status of a company seeking to perform work for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The decision was not particularly controversial or otherwise notable in and of itself. What is notable is that this was the first VA-status SDVOSB protest decision ever issued by OHA.
Continue readingYou probably know this already—from what we can tell word is spreading like wildfire—but Monday (Dec. 17, 2018) the president signed the “Small Business Runway Extension Act of 2018” into law.
This changes the period of time the U.S. Small Business Administration uses to measure a business’s size in revenue-based size standards from three years to five years. The law doesn’t say that there will be a period of implementation, so it’s reasonably safe to assume the effect is immediate.
Continue readingUnless a solicitation for a fixed-price contract provides that the agency can conduct a price realism analysis, it can’t. Even so, agencies sometimes perform this analysis without alerting prospective offerors of the possibility.
If they do, however, the ground is fertile for a protest.
Continue reading