GAO bid protest decisions, commentary on GAO bid protest regulations, and related topics.
A prospective contractor was kicked out of a competition for submitting its pricing in PDF format, instead of in Microsoft Excel files, as called for in the solicitation.
In a bid protest filed by the excluded offeror, the GAO held that the procuring agency properly deemed the offeror unacceptable for failing to use Excel.
Somewhere, Bill Gates is smiling.
A procuring agency appropriately refused to give an 8(a) participant the highest-possible past performance score, despite the 8(a) company’s plan to subcontract to the successful incumbent contractor.
In a recent GAO bid protest decision, the GAO held that in evaluating past performance, the agency properly focused on the experience of the 8(a) prime, which was required to perform at least 51% of the contract work and manage the contract.
The Government Printing Office is not required to refer non-responsibility determinations involving small businesses to the Small Business Administration under the Certificate of Competency program.
According to a recent GAO bid protest decision, the GPO’s status as a legislative entity exempts it from the Certificate of Competency process–much to the disappointment of the small business protester in question.
An incumbent contractor was not entitled to receive a higher past performance score than its competitor simply by virtue of having performed the incumbent contract, according to the GAO.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that the procuring agency reasonably assigned the incumbent contractor the same past performance score as its competitor, and was not required to give the incumbent additional credit under the solicitation’s past performance evaluation factor.
Price reasonableness and price realism are both benchmarks against which a procuring agency may evaluate an offeror’s price, but price reasonableness and price realism–though they are often confused for one another–are not the same thing.
As the GAO explained in a recent bid protest decision, one of the terms involves consideration of whether an offeror’s price is too low, whereas the other evaluates whether the price is too high. The distinction is particularly important for fixed-price procurements, in which the question of whether pricing is too low is not one the procuring agency is always required to ask.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that an agency did not fail to provide an offeror with meaningful discussions about an evaluated weakness in the offeror’s staffing approach because the aspect of the staffing plan deemed to be a weakness was introduced in the offeror’s final proposal revision, or FPR.
A Treasury Department solicitation did not require contractors to be certified HUBZone participants at the time the solicitation was issued, despite language in the solicitation arguably requiring just that in order to receive a high rating for socioeconomic status.
In a recent GAO bid protest decision, the GAO held that the agency properly interpreted the solicitation to require HUBZone certification at the time proposals were due, not the time the solicitation was issued. The GAO’s ruling comports with the HUBZone program regulations, which do not require contractors to be certified at the time a solicitation is issued in order to be considered HUBZone participants for purposes of that solicitation.