A procuring agency’s assignment of a “significant weakness” on the basis of a contractor’s supposed lack of experience was unreasonable because the agency did not consider the experience of the contractor’s personnel.
In BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services, Inc., B-405664, B-405664.2 (Dec. 12, 2011), the GAO sustained a bid protest, holding in part that the agency erred by overlooking the experience of the protester’s personnel.
Avoiding affiliation under the SBA’s ostensible subcontractor rule can be difficult, especially since the ostensible subcontractor rule itself, 13 C.F.R. § 121.103(h)(4), does not provide many examples of the factors that may cause ostensible subcontractor affiliation.
A recent decision of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, Size Appeal of InGenesis, Inc., SBA No. SIZ-5436 (2013), demonstrates that even when a proposed subcontractor will play a major role in the procurement, ostensible subcontractor affiliation may be avoided if the parties carefully structure their relationship.
For a procuring agency, is there anything worse than being schooled on principles of timeliness and fairness by a federal judge?
As the Department of Veterans Affairs found out in a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, there is something that may be worse: being schooled by a federal judge repeatedly quoting from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the 1865 book by Lewis Carroll.
A contractor’s proposal may be rejected for failing to address a requirement contained in a question-and-answer document, so long as the Q&A contains all of the essential elements of a solicitation amendment.
This was the ruling of the GAO in a recent bid protest decision, Energy Engineering & Consulting Services, LLC, B-407352 (Dec. 21, 2012), in which an offeror’s proposal was rejected as technically unacceptable for failing to address a standard imposed in a Q&A.
Check your bid bonds, then check them again–especially if you are bidding on multiple procurements at the same time.
That’s the lesson to be learned from a recent GAO bid protest decision, in which a contractor’s bid was rejected because its bid bond referenced the wrong solicitation number and bid opening date. Reading between the lines, it seems that a simple mistake occurred, confusing the solicitation with another procurement. But assuming that to be the case, the simple mistake (and the contractor’s failure to catch it) cost the contractor an award.
“What a Difference a Day Makes,” goes the classic song.
For one contractor, a day–or rather, two days–made a big difference in its proposal evaluation. Although the solicitation called for offerors to save laboratory specimens for 7 days, the offeror’s proposal stated that it saves specimens “5-7 days.” Not surprisingly, the GAO found that the procuring agency properly assigned the offeror a weakness.
Here’s hoping that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of relaxation, family time, football and lots of food.
For one Arizona contractor, the holiday was a little less festive this year, after the contractor lost out on a Navy cost-reimbursement contract–in part because the Navy unilaterally upped some of the contractor’s proposed labor rates. The GAO found nothing wrong with the agency’s decision, holding that the Navy reasonably determined that the contractor’s proposed labor rates were unrealistically low.