GAO bid protest decisions, commentary on GAO bid protest regulations, and related topics.
GAO bid protests decreased slightly in Fiscal Year 2013, down 2% from the previous year. The “effectiveness rate” for protesters–a statistic that includes both formal GAO sustain decisions and voluntary agency corrective actions–was 43%, up slightly from FY 2012.
The GAO’s FY 2013 statistics are included in its January 2 Annual Report to Congress, which also includes a few other bid protest tidbits of note.
A bid protest filing with the U.S. Government Accountability Office will be deemed to be filed on a particular day if it is filed before 5:31 p.m. Eastern Standard Time , according to a recent GAO bid protest decision.
The GAO’s decision in Government Acquisitions, Inc., B-408426, B-408426.2 (Sept. 17, 2013) clarifies that the GAO’s 5:30 p.m. deadline allows for a timely filing “until the clock reaches 5:31 p.m.” Unfortunately for my own curiosity, however, the decision does not answer the more interesting question of what on earth the protester was thinking when it filed at 35 seconds after 5:30 p.m.
A small business’s so-called “hardship request” to vary a solicitation’s payment scheme caused the procuring agency to reject its proposal.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO upheld the agency’s decision, holding that the small business’s proposal was, at best, ambiguous about whether the small business would comply with the solicitation.
A bid bond containing an erroneous “not to exceed” limit of less than the 20 percent required by the solicitation was defective, and was properly rejected by the procuring agency.
The GAO’s recent bid protest decision in IMR Development Corporation, B-408585 (Nov. 13, 2013) is a reminder that when a bid guarantee is required, a contractor must ensure that the bid bond meets the government’s requirements.
How many times have you forgotten to include an attachment in an email? For many of us, it is not an uncommon occurrence.
In the case of one unfortunate contractor, a forgotten email attachment led to the rejection of its proposal–and the GAO upheld the agency’s decision.
“Bundling” under the FAR is often misunderstood. One common misconception is that any time an agency consolidates requirements from multiple contracts into a single contract unsuitable for small businesses, the consolidation is impermissible “bundling” unless the consolidated contract cannot be broken down into smaller requirements.
Unfortunately for small businesses, the FAR’s definition of bundling is not so broad. For example, as demonstrated in a recent GAO bid protest decision, a consolidation of requirements being performed by large businesses likely will not qualify as impermissible bundling.
A contractor’s alleged breach of its teaming agreement did not provide a basis for the agency to conclude that a Procurement Integrity Act violation had occurred.
According to a recent GAO bid protest decision, even if a teammate misuse voluntarily provided confidential information, the misuse does not violate the Procurement Integrity Act. Moreover, the GAO considers an allegation regarding the breach of a teaming agreement to be a private dispute, falling outside of the GAO’s bid protest jurisdiction.