GAO bid protest decisions, commentary on GAO bid protest regulations, and related topics.
Of late the pages of this blog have been entirely coronavirus and COVID-19 obsessed—and for good reason. But that does not stop the Government Accountability Office from deciding bid protests.
With all that’s been going on, writing about a GAO decision regarding run-of-the-mill unreasonable cost realism evaluation is downright refreshing.
Continue readingA few months ago, we blogged on a sustained GAO decision that concluded the Marines had failed to evaluate offerors in accordance with the Solicitation. Specifically, GAO identified issues with the evaluations of offeror samples, and recommended that the Marines reevaluate offerors. In the wake of GAO’s decision, the Marines filed a request for reconsideration.
Unfortunately, the Marines request did not comply precisely with GAO’s filing procedures, resulting in a dismissal.
Continue readingUnder the VA’s Rule of Two, the VA is required to set aside solicitations for veteran-owned businesses if there is a reasonable expectation of receiving offers from two or more such businesses capable of performing the required work at a fair and reasonable price. But how reasonable does the VA’s expectation have to be in a given procurement?
GAO recently reviewed the reasonableness of VA’s efforts and found them lacking.
Continue readingGAO sustained a protest recently where the agency seemed to think that a reasonable cost was also a realistic cost.
That is not necessarily so.
Continue readingWhile GAO’s bid protest process is designed to achieve the laudable goal of providing a less costly process for procurement disputes, pursuing a GAO protest is nevertheless expensive. To offset these expenses, successful GAO protesters may be reimbursed for some of their expenses incurred pursuing a protest.
But what constitutes a successful protest that would entitle a protester to costs? In a recent request, GAO concluded that successfully defending against a motion to dismiss was not enough to entitle a party to costs, despite the fact that the agency subsequently took corrective action.
Continue readingIt is well understood that offerors must submit proposals that meet the procuring agency’s requirements, including any page limitations set by the solicitation. But what if an offeror’s proposal contains an obvious layout and printing error that inadvertently puts required information outside the established page limits? Does the agency have a duty to seek clarifications or allow corrections?
GAO says no.
Continue readingAs we’ve previously discussed here at SmallGovCon, a substantial number of GAO bid protests are resolved through voluntary corrective action. While corrective action is typically a desirable outcome for a bid protest, it by no means affords a protester the opportunity to relax.
Indeed, as one offeror recently discovered, the failure to diligently protest the scope of a corrective action barred raising certain challenges later on.
Continue reading