Category Archives: GAO Bid Protests

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

GAO: Agency Reasonably Adjusted Sub’s Unsubstantiated Costs

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Under a solicitation for a cost-reimbursable contract, an offeror’s proposed costs are not controlling, because the government is on the hook for the contractor’s actual and allowable incurred costs. Before making an award decision, the government must consider whether the proposed costs should be upwardly adjusted.

A recent GAO bid protest decision highlights the need for offerors bidding on cost-reimbursable work to make sure that their proposed costs are realistic and substantiated—including the proposed costs of major subcontractors.

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Bare-Bones Organizational Chart Sinks Proposal

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When a procuring agency asks for details, an offeror better provide those details–or run the risk of exclusion from the competition.

Recently, the GAO has confirmed that offerors must provide sufficient detail or run the risk of being eliminated from a competition. First, came Res Rei Development, Inc., B-410466.7 (Comp. Gen. Oct. 16, 2015), where GAO held that an agency can find a proposal technically unacceptable when it essentially parrots the terms of the solicitation. Now comes LOTOS S.r.l., B-411717.5 (Comp. Gen. Nov. 19, 2015), where GAO found that the agency had reasonably excluded an offeror from the competition based in part on the offeror’s failure to provide a detailed organizational chart.

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GAO: Incumbent Contractor Not Entitled To Highest Past Performance Rating

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An incumbent contractor was not entitled to “extra credit” for its status as the incumbent, nor was the incumbent entitled to the highest-possible past performance rating.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO confirmed that the mere fact that an offeror is the incumbent contractor does not require the procuring agency to assign the offeror a particular past performance score, so long as the agency’s past performance evaluation is reasonable.

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SBA Size Determination “Not Relevant” To Subcontracting Limitation Allegation

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A SBA size determination, in which the SBA found a contractor to be an eligible small business for purposes of a particular procurement, was irrelevant to the question of whether the same contractor would violate the limitation on subcontracting under a different solicitation.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO (correctly) rejected the procuring agency’s argument that a recent SBA size determination was evidence that a contractor would comply with the subcontracting limitation.

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GAO: Subcontract With Incumbent Didn’t Mandate High Past Performance Score

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An offeror was not entitled to a high past performance score merely because it proposed a subcontracting relationship with the incumbent prime contractor.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that an agency had properly assigned the offeror a mere “Satisfactory” past performance score, despite a subcontracting relationship with the incumbent, because the prospective prime contractor had not sufficiently demonstrated its own relevant past performance.

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GAO: Agency Cannot Ignore Apparent Conflict

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When a procuring agency knows of an apparent organizational conflict of interest, but makes no effort to resolve the issue, the resulting award is improper.

In a recent GAO bid protest decision, GAO held that it is impermissible for an agency to simply ignore a known conflict (or apparent conflict).  Interestingly, GAO never determined whether the conflict helped or hurt the business’s efforts at winning the award. It said essentially that it did not matter. Because a conflict existed, the agency knew about it, and did nothing, the award was flawed.

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GAO Protests (And Effectiveness) Rise In FY 2015

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GAO bid protests were up 3% in Fiscal Year 2015–and protesters achieved a favorable outcome in 45% of cases.

In its Annual Report to Congress on its bid protest function, the GAO provided a look at how protesters fared during FY 2015, as well as the most common reasons protests were sustained.

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