It sounds more like a scene from “All the President’s Men” than the factual background of a GAO bid protest. In McTech Corporation, B-406100, B-406100.2 (Feb. 8, 2012), an anonymous caller tipped off a procuring agency that McTech had an apparent organizational conflict of interest, leading to McTech’s exclusion from the competition. The resulting GAO bid protest didn’t bring down a presidential administration, but it does provide a cautionary tale on the intersection of SBA mentor-protégé agreements and OCIs.
Category Archives: GAO Bid Protests
GAO bid protest decisions, commentary on GAO bid protest regulations, and related topics.
GAO: HUBZone Price Preference Applies to GSA Lease Procurements
Is the GAO the new best friend of small businesses? That might be going a bit too far, but in recent years, the GAO has sided with small businesses in several important bid protests regarding the scope of small business preferences and set-asides.
First, in Delex Systems, Inc., B-400403 (Oct. 8, 2008), the GAO held that the small business set-aside provisions of FAR 19.502-2(b)—the so-called “rule of two”—apply to competitions for task and delivery orders under multiple-award contracts. In Aldevra, B-405271, B-405524 (Oct. 11, 2011) and Kingdomware Technologies, B-405727 (Dec. 19, 2011), the GAO sided with service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses against the very federal agency created to support veterans, holding that the VA had improperly used the Federal Supply Schedule rather than set-asides for SDVOSBs. The decision in The Argos Group, LLC, B-406040 (Jan. 24, 2012), follows in this vein—and this time is a nice win for HUBZone small businesses.
GAO: Successful Reconsideration Request Does Not Save VA SDVOSB Contract
Here’s a piece of music trivia: apparently, “Get It Right the First Time” is both a song by Billy Joel and a 1997 live album by Canadian punk band SNFU. Somehow, I’m guessing there aren’t too many people who own both The Stranger (the classic Joel album featuring the song), and the SNFU opus, which offers decidedly un-Joel like song titles, such as “Drunk on a Bike” and “Cannibal Café.”
Billy Joel and SNFU might not have much else in common, but “Get It Right the First Time” is a good mantra when it comes to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. When a service-disabled veteran-owned small business submits a verification application to the VA Center for Veterans Enterprise, it is important to get the application right from the start. As a recent GAO bid protest decision shows, even a successful second bite at the apple might mean lost contacts in the interim.
Large Primes: Meet your Subcontracting Goals–Or Else
Small businesses sometimes complain that large prime contractors are not always held accountable for failing to meet their small business subcontracting goals. If that complaint sounds familiar, you may be cheered by the GAO’s decision in a bid protest filed by one very well-known large prime contractor. In that case, the prime’s history of meeting (or perhaps, not always meeting) its small business subcontracting goals was a critical factor causing the large prime to lose out on a contract.
GAO Confirms: VA SDVOSB Set-Asides Trump Schedule Buys
If this was a game of high-stakes poker, you might say the GAO has called the VA’s bluff.
Service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses rejoiced after the GAO held, in Aldevra, B-405271, B-405524 (Oct. 11, 2011) that federal law requires the VA to prioritize SDVOSB procurements over Federal Supply Schedule acquisitions. But, to the shock and outrage of the SDVOSB community, the VA has refused to follow the GAO’s interpretation of the law. Now, to mix card-game metaphors, the GAO has doubled down, issuing a second decision confirming its ruling in Aldevra.
SBA OHA, Not GAO, Decides NAICS Code Appeals
Appealing the NAICS code a procuring agency assigns to a set-aside solicitation can be a powerful tool: after all, if the NAICS code and corresponding size standard change, it can dramatically alter the competitive playing field. But if a company wants to file a NAICS code appeal, it must file with the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, not the GAO, which lacks jurisdiction to hear challenges to NAICS code designations—something the protester in BlueStar Energy Solutions, B-405690 (Dec. 12, 2011) learned too late.
GAO Protests and Bias Claims: Fuhgettaboutit
When small government contractors call me about potential GAO bid protests, they sometimes are convinced that the procuring agency was biased against them, or biased in favor of another offeor (in many cases, the incumbent). Fired up, these clients want to file scathing GAO protests, accusing the source selection officials of improprieties.
It’s my unpleasant job to tell these angry contractors, “unless you have ironclad evidence, I think you should save your money.” Although allegations of bias are relatively common in GAO protests, in my experience, the GAO almost never sustains a protest on this basis. In other words, as my friends from the Northeast might say, fuhgettaboutit.