Protecting sensitive business information, especially pricing, is essential even in the GAO bid protest realm. As an agency found out, even an inadvertent release of such information could lead to a sustained protest.
This slip up resulted in the cancellation of a nearly $1 billion contract. Needless to say, this was a big deal. How did this happen, and what should parties be looking for to protect their confidential data?
Continue reading…Last night, NITAAC released Amendment 4 to the CIO-SP4 RFP. The amendment removes the language expressly restricting the use of first-tier subcontractors past performance, capabilities, and experience, which was previously added by Amendment 3. Let’s take a closer look.
Continue reading…Happy Friday and welcome to this week’s addition of the week in review. I recently got back from a camping trip in 100 degree weather, so I know that staying cool is crucial. Hope you are all staying cool and enjoying the summer.
There were several announcements such as Robin Carnahan‘s confirmation by the Senate as Administrator of the General Services Administration Wednesday afternoon and on Tuesday Kiran Ahuja was also confirmed to be the next director of the Office of Personnel Management. The General Services Administration made awards to 426 small businesses in an effort to provide agencies with more emerging technology options, completing the first phase of its $50 billion 8(a) STARS III contract Thursday. Read on for more details and have a great weekend!
Continue reading…We finally have NITAAC’s CIO-SP4 solicitation, complete with several amendments and a Q&A. So that means the anticipated offerors have the answers to all of their questions about this long-awaited GWAC procurement, right? Well, no. In fact, for anyone planning to team-up for CIO-SP4, there seems to be more confusion now than ever before.
Continue reading…Avoiding affiliation with other companies can be critical to qualifying as a small business under the SBA’s rules for government contractors. But not all SBA affiliation rules are intuitive, and in my career as a government contracts attorney I have seen the same misconceptions about the affiliation rules come up time and and time again.
So without further ado, here are five common misconceptions about the SBA’s affiliation rules.
Continue reading…In order to have a bid protest sustained, a protestor must have a reasonable chance of being awarded the contract if the protest succeeded. Often, this just means that the protestor’s own proposal must be acceptable to the awarding agency in the first place. What many contractors do not know, however, is that if intervening offerors would be in line for the award even if the protest was sustained, the protestor will not be considered an interested party by the GAO.
Continue reading…Friday marked a new federal holiday for Juneteenth. Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery by marking the day enslaved people in Texas learned they were free. This is the first new federal holiday since first holiday to be approved since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in 1983. Many government agencies were closed on Friday and so we bring this week in review a little later due to the holiday.
As we recognize this new national holiday, here’s some other notable news in the federal government.
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