Tag Archives: bid protest

2023 Bid Protest Report, Success Rate Up, Total Protests Up a Little Bit

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One of our favorite fall traditions is back. No, not gorging on stuffing after a turkey trot. Rather, it’s time for GAO’s annual bid protest report. This report is GAO’s summary of bid protests for the previous fiscal year. It contains some key insights for how the protest numbers have changed from prior years.

Here are some key points from this year: (1) the key effectiveness metric, showing numbers of sustains and corrective actions at GAO, was up even higher to 57% for the 2023 fiscal year and (2) total bid protest numbers are up slightly, reversing a downward trend in total protest numbers from the last few years.

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Showing Your Work: Protest of Evaluation Sustained for Lack of Explanation by Agency

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We at SmallGovCon have explored some examples of protests where an unfortunate oversight by a contractor has been the difference between winning and losing. This, of course, can be very frustrating to contractors, especially considering that federal agencies often get leeway where contractors wouldn’t. But federal agencies, too, make mistakes, and even simple ones can be enough for a successful protest. This was the case in a January 2023 decision by GAO.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: February 13-17, 2023

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Happy Friday and happy belated Valentine’s Day. We hope you had a great week and found some time to celebrate with your loved ones. We have certainly been in celebration mode with the Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl on Sunday. What an exciting game and what a great season!

There was a lot of news from the federal government contracting world this week, as well. We have included a few articles that we hope will be of interest to you below, including those on small business contracting involvement and CIO-SP4 protests. Enjoy your weekend.

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Key Personnel Unavailability Leads to Sustained GAO Protest

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Key personnel are an important term in many proposals. Establishing the resume, experience, and availability of personnel that will perform major functions of a contract is a key (dad joke) aspect of a winning proposal. As one offeror found out, when key personnel become unavailable, the technical acceptability of the entire offer can be in jeopardy.

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2021 GAO Bid Protest Report Reveals Nearly Half of Protests are Successful

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GAO has released its annual bid protest report. Along with mashed potatoes and stuffing, it’s one of our favorite holiday traditions at SmallGovCon. This report came over a month earlier than last year, making this more of a Thanksgiving treat than Christmas this year.

A couple key takeaways are (1) the key effectiveness metric, showing numbers of sustains and corrective actions at GAO, was 48% for the 2021 fiscal year and (2) total bid protest numbers are down slightly, continuing a trend from the last few years.

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Inadvertent Release of Incumbent Pricing Data Leads to Sustained Protest

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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?

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GAO Annual Bid Protest Report Shows 51% Effectiveness Rate

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In 2020, the GAO Bid Protest effectiveness rate crossed the 50% threshold, higher than we’ve seen it in any recent year.  Overall, cases filed went down a mere 2% year over year.

GAO issues its yearly report as a requirement under statute. Congress is particularly concerned with knowing 1) which federal agencies didn’t follow GAO’s recommendations in bid protests and 2) if GAO did not issue a decision in 100 days. As like most years, GAO was “pleased” to report that all agencies followed its recommendations, when given, and that it timely (within 100 days) decided all bid protests.

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