Category Archives: GAO Bid Protests

GAO bid protest decisions, commentary on GAO bid protest regulations, and related topics.

Removing a Price Realism Evaluation is a Material Change, Says GAO

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Price realism—the evaluation of whether a proposed price is too low—is a method the government may use to evaluate fixed price offers to ensure that offerors are proposing pricing that reflects an understanding of the work required by the solicitation.

Prices that are unrealistically low can result in proposal elimination. This means price realism is an important consideration when preparing a bid. But what if an agency decides after proposal submission that a price realism evaluation will not be performed? In a recent decision, GAO confirmed that offerors must be given the opportunity to revise their proposals.

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GAO Holds that Protest Was Late Despite Post-Debriefing Questions

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Some contractors mistakenly believe that debriefings or post-debriefing questions always extend the deadline for filing a protest with GAO. In some cases they do, but in others they don’t.

In cases where they don’t, a protester must file its protest within 10 days of knowing the basis for its protest. Otherwise, GAO will dismiss the protest as untimely, without any regards to the protest’s merits.

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YouTube Tuesday: Why Should You File Bid Protests at GAO?

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We here at Koprince Law have been seeing a lot of GAO bid protests lately, but for those of you unfamiliar with the Government Accountability Office and what it means to file a bid protest, this video is for you:

For more information, or if you need assistance filing your GAO protest, learn more about how we can help here.

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GAO Awards Costs After Agency Unduly Delays Corrective Action

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GAO recently awarded the reasonable costs of filing and pursuing a protest to an agency’s evaluation and award decision, after finding that the agency unduly delayed corrective action in response to a clearly meritorious protest.

Let’s take a look.

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GAO: Single Instance of Disparate Treatment Prejudiced Protester

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A GAO protest can rest on a number of different grounds. One of the most fertile, however, is disparate treatment. That is, GAO is particularly sensitive to arguments that a procuring agency wasn’t even-handed in evaluating the same features or omissions in competing proposals.

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Despite Your Interest in a Protest, GAO Might Not Think You’re an “Interested Party”

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Let’s suppose that you just received a new solicitation hot off the press. As you peruse it, you find a requirement that you believe is too onerous or unnecessary. So you contemplate filing a GAO protest to challenge that term.

Before doing so, be sure that you’re an “interested party” under GAO’s regulations. Well, I filed a protest, you say, doesn’t that make me an interested party? Short answer: no.

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GAO Bid Protests: A Wrinkle In Time(liness)

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As our regular readers know, a GAO protest challenging an agency’s evaluation decision must be filed within 10 days from the date the protester knew (or should have known) of the protest grounds, or within 10 days from the date the protester receives its debriefing (but only if the debriefing was required and timely requested). 4 C.F.R. § 21.2(a)(2).

But sometimes, an agency might give an offeror a reason to protest before it makes its official award determination. In that case, should the offeror wait to file its protest until the agency completes its evaluation?

In some cases, no—the protest should be filed within 10 days from the date the agency makes its determination known.

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