Category Archives: GAO Bid Protests

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

Joint Ventures and Past Performance: Agency May Consider Experience of JV Members

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Joint ventures seem to be an increasingly popular vehicle for pursuing federal contracts, but the FAR and agency solicitations usually are not written with joint ventures in mind.  As a result, confusion can sometimes arise over how a joint venture’s proposal should be evaluated.

Case in point: past performance.  A joint venture is often a new legal entity, so should it receive a “neutral” past performance score?  Not necessarily.  According to a recent GAO bid protest decision, it is perfectly acceptable for a procuring agency to consider the relevant experience and past performance of the individual joint venture members.

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Single Negative Past Performance Reference Sinks Contractor’s Bid

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Past performance is a key ingredient in most competitive government procurements.  Even if a contractor’s overall past performance record is excellent, a single blemish can damage the contractor’s chances of award.

In a recent GAO bid protest decision, the agency relied on a single adverse past performance reference to assign the contractor a poor past performance rating–even though the contractor strongly disagreed with the adverse reference.  The GAO held that there was nothing wrong with the agency’s past performance evaluation.

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GAO: Protest of Unlicensed Awardee Not Allowed

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What do you do if a federal agency awards a contract to one of your competitors, but the competitor in question does not possess certain licenses required by the solicitation?  At least in one recent GAO bid protest decision, the answer appears to be, “not much.”

In SIMMEC Training Solutions, B-406819 (Aug. 20, 2012), the protester complained–correctly–that the prime contractor lacked two required licenses.  The GAO ruled against the protester anyway, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the licensing challenge.

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GAO: Agencies Cannot Ignore Price In Evaluating BPAs

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In the current economic climate, procuring agencies seem to be focused more than ever on the bottom line, with “lowest-price, technically-acceptable” solicitations appearing to be on the rise.  Even today, however, price is not the government’s paramount consideration in every solicitation–nor is it required to be.  But that does not mean that a procuring agency is free to ignore price completely.

In a recent GAO bid protest decision, the procuring agency failed to consider the protester’s price before eliminating the protester from a competition for award of a Blanket Purchase Agreement.  The GAO’s response?  “Not so fast.”

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Contractor’s Price Revealed to Competitors, GAO Says “Tough Luck”

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When a contractor is declared the winner of a competition, the contractor’s bottom-line pricing is usually revealed to competitors.  Typically, the winner has no complaints: it is well-understood that the bottom-line pricing of winning contractors is usually considered public information (the taxpayers have a right to know how the government is spending their money).

But what if, after announcing the supposed awardee’s price, the agency changes its mind and re-opens the competition?  The price of the former “winner” is exposed, while the prices of its competitors remain a mystery.  It sounds unfair, but in a recent GAO bid protest decision, the GAO refused to require the procuring agency to level the playing field.

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GAO: Agencies May Request Size Re-certification For Task Orders

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The GAO has confirmed that procuring agencies may require contractors to re-certify their “small” sizes in connection with task order competitions under a small business multiple-award contract.  The GAO’s recent decision in The Ross Group Construction Corporation, B-405180.3 (Aug. 7, 2012) demonstrates that procuring agencies have broad discretion to request size re-certification–even for task order competitions for which re-certification was not initially requested.

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