Back in 2023, we wrote about Congress’s late-2022 mandate to update and clarify various rules surrounding organizational conflicts of interest (or OCIs). At that time, Congress, in a short piece of legislation, asked that OCI rules be updated to address a number of areas. In this post, I’ll provide some predictions about how the OCI rules will be updated, as we wait for the new proposed rule to come out. In addition, I’m discussing this topic at the Judicial Conference for the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Once the proposed rule is released, SmallGovCon will also do a run-through of those changes.
Continue readingTag Archives: conflicts of interest
New OCI Law Focuses on Private Sector Contracts, More Examples, More Procedures
Late 2022, the president signed a law that would increase what contractors have to reveal about potential organizational conflicts of interest. The law is called the Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act. Below, we highlight some of the main things contractors should look out for based on this new law.
Continue readingGAO: Multiple Contracts With Single Agency May Increase Conflict Risk
As federal contractors begin to become engaged in multiple programs for a particular agency, the potential for the firm to encounter a situation where it finds itself involved in an organizational conflict of interest (OCI) may increase. This is particularly true with respect to “impaired objectivity” OCI, which is when a firm’s ability to render impartial advice to the government is or might be undermined by the firm’s competing interests. These OCIs often arise in service contracts where the contractor is placed in a position of evaluating its own performance on other contracts.
In a recent case, GAO found that an agency’s award of a contract created an impermissible impaired objectivity OCI for a contractor from two different perspectives for services that the contractor provided in the capacity as both a prime and subcontractor for an agency. The case is Steel Point Solutions, LLC B-419709,B-419709.2 (July 07, 2021).
Continue readingPlaying Games? GAO Requires NASA to Scratch $650 Million Contract Due to Foosball Snafu
While most of our get-togethers these days involve mask wearing, social distancing, and even virtual happy hours, spending time with friends is a great way to keep spirits light. Unfortunately for one group of friends, their weekly hangouts led GAO to conclude in its recent decision, Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., B-418835 (Sept. 25, 2020), that NASA had to cancel a more than $650 million deal and start the procurement process all over.
Continue readingRing Ring! GAO Sustains Protest of Awardee’s Conflict of Interest
Agencies have broad discretion when it comes to evaluating potential organizational conflicts of interest–but that discretion isn’t unlimited. In a recent decision involving a fight between two telecommunications giants, the GAO sustained the protest, holding that the the agency unreasonably concluded that there was no possibility of an “impaired objectivity” OCI arising from the award.
Continue readingGAO: Agency Cannot Ignore Apparent Conflict
When a procuring agency knows of an apparent organizational conflict of interest, but makes no effort to resolve the issue, the resulting award is improper.
In a recent GAO bid protest decision, GAO held that it is impermissible for an agency to simply ignore a known conflict (or apparent conflict). Interestingly, GAO never determined whether the conflict helped or hurt the business’s efforts at winning the award. It said essentially that it did not matter. Because a conflict existed, the agency knew about it, and did nothing, the award was flawed.
No Conflict: GAO Holds Contractor’s Former Employee May Evaluate Proposals
Is it a conflict of interest for a contractor’s former employee to evaluate his old firm’s competitive proposal? Not necessarily, according to the GAO.
In a recent GAO bid protest decision, the agency’s technical evaluation board included a member who had previously worked for the winning offeror. As one might expect, this did not sit particularly well with one of the awardee’s competitors, which filed a GAO bid protest. The GAO’s ruling: there was no conflict of interest.