Diving into the National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) has become something of an annual tradition in federal contracting. There seem to always be some sections that impact federal contracting, pushing for changes in processes or procurements. Part of 2025’s NDAA suggests fee shifting when there is a GAO protest of a Department of Defense (“DoD”) procurement. Basically, the 2025 NDAA suggested that if a bid protest of a DoD procurement is unsuccessful, the protester would be required to pay certain costs. Unsurprisingly, the GAO emphatically objected to this proposed change to its bid protest process.
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Timing is Everything: GAO Dismisses Post-Bid Protest of Solicitation Terms as Untimely.
It is safe to say that every federal contractor, at one time or another, has felt the terms of a solicitation were unfair or otherwise didn’t make sense. Federal agencies are comprised of people, and people make mistakes. Sometimes, then, mistakes make it into the solicitation. Unfair or erroneous terms in a solicitation are a valid grounds for a protest, but it is crucial to know when such a protest is timely. In most cases, if the time for bids has passed, any protest of the terms of the solicitation, be it at GAO or the Court of Federal Claims, will be untimely. There are rare exceptions, but, in general, a protest of terms of the solicitation must be brought before bids are due to be timely. Untimeliness equals dismissal. In this post, we will explore a protest GAO dismissed for this very reason.
Continue readingFAR 52.222-46 Again? GAO Sustains Protest that Agency Price Evaluation was Unreasonable
Agencies get a lot of discretion when it comes to evaluating proposals. We’ve explored several different cases where GAO affirmed this principle. However, this principle is not absolute. Contrary to what some might think, there are limits on an agency’s discretion when it comes to how it evaluates proposals. Recently, the Air Force was reminded of this fact in a GAO protest concerning a price evaluation. We explore that decision here.
Continue readingPlaying by the Rules: GAO Reminds Agency to Follow Criteria in Evaluating Past Performance
In federal contracting, often times the agencies are given a good amount of leeway in their evaluations and award decisions, so long as the agency followed the solicitation terms. In a recent GAO decision, an agency was reminded by the GAO that it must follow exactly what it wrote in its solicitation when making its award decision. Specifically, past performance criteria must be followed by the agency in evaluation past performance examples.
Continue readingWhy File: A GAO Bid Protest Intervention
When contractors think of GAO Bid Protests, most think of the process from the perspective of the protester. However, the contract awardee is not without a voice in the bid protest process at GAO. While the agency will generally defend the contract award decision regardless, the awardee itself can also have a seat at the table. In this installment in our “Why File” series, we will explore why a contractor would want to file an intervention in a GAO Bid Protest.
Continue readingA Glitch In Time? GAO Denies Late Proposal Protest for Lack of Systemic Outages with Agency System
Both GAO and the federal agencies take proposal deadlines with the utmost seriousness. We have discussed a few other examples of late proposals being denied by GAO before. Now, we have another one. This time, the protester put forth the argument that its lateness was not its fault. Rather, it was caused by issues with the agency’s proposal receipt system. Unfortunately for the protester, GAO did not accept this argument. Here, we will go into how it arrived at that decision.
Continue reading2024 GAO Bid Protest Report: Numbers Down, Effectiveness Still Even Odds
As we look forward to fall traditions like turkey and mashed potatoes, pumpkin spice, and leaf peeping, don’t sleep on another fall tradition, the GAO bid protest report. This report is GAO’s summary of bid protests for the previous fiscal year. It contains some important insights for how GAO bid protest numbers have changed from prior years. Of course, many bid protests are filed at the Court of Federal Claims, so this is only one part of the picture.
Here are some key points from this year: (1) the key effectiveness metric, showing numbers of sustains and corrective actions at GAO, was similar to prior years at 52% for the 2024 fiscal year and (2) total bid protest numbers were down slightly from 2023 but a little above the number for 2022. Numbers are still lower than in 2021 and 2020.
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