GAO bid protest decisions, commentary on GAO bid protest regulations, and related topics.
A 28-day period was sufficient time for offerors to prepare proposals in response to a solicitation for janitorial and mechanical services.
In a recent decision, the GAO held that, under the circumstances of the procurement, it was reasonable for the agency to allow fewer than 30 days to respond to the solicitation–and noted that the protester’s delayed search for teammates was a “significant reason” for the protester’s own difficulties in submitting a timely proposal.
A procuring agency was not at fault when an offeror’s emailed proposal “bounced back” because of the large size of the email.
In a recent decision, the GAO applied the general rule that it is “an offeror’s responsibility to deliver its proposal to the proper place at the proper time” and held that the agency was not to blame when its email server rejected the large email containing the offeror’s proposal.
A large prime contractor’s “consistent failure” to meet its small business and socioeconomic subcontracting goals on prior projects resulted in a lower past performance score–and led to the prime’s elimination from the competition.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that the agency properly eliminated a prospective prime contractor from the competition in part because the large business had not met its subcontracting goals on three recent contracts.
An agency awarding a fixed-price contract can only evaluate offerors’ proposals for price realism–that is, determine whether offerors’ proposed pricing is so low as to be unrealistic–if the solicitation calls for a price realism evaluation.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO confirmed that when a fixed-price solicitation does not advise offerors that a price realism evaluation will be conducted, the agency is not permitted to reject an offeror’s proposal because of unrealistically low pricing.
A prospective contractor has the right to file a GAO bid protest challenging an agency’s refusal to set aside a solicitation for small businesses–but only if the protest is filed before the proposal deadline.
In a recent protest decision, the GAO applied the longstanding rule that “alleged improprieties in a solicitation that are apparent prior to the closing time for receipt of initial proposals be filed before that time,” and held that an agency’s failure to issue a set-aside is an “alleged impropriety” to which the timeliness rule applies.
When bid protest document is emailed to the GAO, the document must timely arrive at the GAO’s official protest email address (protests@gao.gov), or the document is not timely filed.
As one protester recently learned the hard way, a GAO protest filing cannot be accomplished by emailing a protest document to any other email address–including the individual “gao.gov” email address of the GAO attorney handling the protest.
A large incumbent contractor was properly assigned a mere “satisfactory confidence” past performance rating because the large business failed to meet its small business subcontracting goals under four of the five contracts it submitted for evaluation.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO upheld the agency’s assignment of a satisfactory confidence score to the large incumbent–despite the incumbent’s strong performance in many areas–because of the incumbent’s failure to satisfy its subcontracting goals.