Almost a year ago, we wrote of a memorandum from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy urging agencies to strengthen the debriefing process. OFPP’s rationale was simple: because effective debriefings tend to reduce the number of protests, agencies should be inclined to enhance the debriefing process. Congress seems to have taken note: the 2018 National […]
The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act put a new twist on potential costs a contractor may incur in filing a GAO bid protest. While many federal contractors are familiar with the costs arising from a GAO protest, including their attorneys’ fees and consultant and expert witness fees, and some are lucky enough to recoup such […]
Last year, during consideration of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, the Senate proposed to “reform” the GAO bid protest process by forcing some unsuccessful protesters to pay the government’s costs, and (more controversially) by denying incumbent protesters profits on bridge contracts and extensions. Congress ultimately chose not to implement these measures. Instead, Congress called […]
President Obama signed the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act into law on December 23, 2016. As is often the case, the NDAA included many changes affecting government contractors. Here at SmallGovCon, my colleagues and I have been following the 2017 NDAA closely. Here’s a roundup of all 16 posts we’ve written about the government contracting […]
Congress is taking a hard look at how to promote increased competition in federal contracting. Among the provisions in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act is a requirement for the GAO to prepare a report on how the DoD enters into and uses indefinite delivery contracts–and recommendations for changes to promote competition with respect to […]
Under the Competition in Contracting Act, the Government Accountability Office is required to issue an annual report to Congress that summarizes the “most prevalent grounds” of sustained protests, identifies the instances in which GAO was not able to decide a protest within its 100-day deadline, and list any protest where the agency did not follow […]
The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act gives certain small subcontractors a new tool to request past performance ratings from the government. If the pilot program works as intended, it may ultimately improve those subcontractors’ competitiveness for prime contract bids, for which a documented history of past performance is often critical.