It’s early October, which means that the federal government’s end-of-fiscal-year contracting binge has drawn to an end. With the spate of contract awards, this time of year typically sees an increase in the number of bid protests being filed, or at least contemplated.
If you’re considering filing a bid protest, here are five (more) things to keep in mind:
Continue readingPop quiz: Your company is the only technically acceptable offeror in an lowest-priced, technically acceptable procurement. You win, right? Not when the agency cancels the solicitation, hoping that a cheaper offeror who was not technically acceptable will submit a bid if given another chance. GAO recently considered this very scenario.
Continue readingMany businesses go through name changes and rebranding throughout their growth as a company. But if you’re a government contractor, a business name change requires added updates that, if not done correctly and promptly, can affect the business’s ability to win a contract.
GAO’s recent decision hammered home just how important it is to make sure your contractor profiles are updated if you want to win contracts.
Continue readingAs recently as May, the Department of Veterans Affairs told a nonprofit helping to employ blind workers that it intended to renew its contract. The organization was shocked, therefore, when on July 30, the VA issued a notice of award to a service-disabled veteran-owned small business. To make matters worse, the nonprofit’s GAO protest of the award was promptly dismissed for being untimely.
What the heck happened?
Continue readingWhenever GAO issues a bid protest decision, some parties are happier than others. In limited circumstances, however, an unhappy party may petition GAO to reconsider its decision if the outcome was based on errors of either fact or law. It is extremely rare for GAO to reverse itself during a reconsideration request.
That may explain why in a recent reconsideration decision, GAO maintains that its decision was correct based on the facts presented to it, but GAO nevertheless modified its recommendations substantially in the face of new facts.
Continue readingWhen submitting bids, contractors should always double check their proposal submission methods, whether it be a designated portal, email, or any other method, and do so well before the deadline.
GAO recently had the opportunity to examine proposal submission issues related to a US Navy procurement, and did not show sympathy for the contractor who experienced proposal submission issues right at the deadline.
Continue readingGAO recently sustained protest to an agency’s FAR Part 13 procurement that relied exclusively on CPARS-generated assessment chart rating percentages to evaluate vendors’ past performance. The agency’s goal was to “maximize competition” by considering all past work, rather than just relevant work.
While there is no FAR Part 13 regulatory prohibition on doing so, GAO found the CPARS charts incomplete and misleading and the evaluation inconsistent with the terms of the solicitation.
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