In these cold winter months, gloves with touchscreen capabilities are all but essential. Recently, the Army sought to procure touchscreen-compatible combat gloves, but required that all goatskin leather used for the gloves be “100% Domestic” in accordance with the Berry Amendment.
In Mechanix Wear, Inc., B-416704 (Nov. 19, 2018), however, GAO sustained a protest against this requirement because the item being procured was subject to a Berry Amendment exception.
Continue readingMultiple-award task-order contracts are becoming an increasingly common feature of government contracting, and many carry very high ceiling values. This places participation in MATOC awards at a premium.
Unsurprisingly, base MATOC awards are being protested with some frequency before GAO. In a recent decision, GAO provided a unique solution for sustaining MATOC protests without causing substantial disruptions: simply adding the successful protester to the pool.
Recently, GAO sustained a bid protest where an agency “unreasonably excluded” a joint venture’s proposal, which included all necessary information listed in the solicitation, from competition.
GAO held that it was unreasonable for the agency to exclude the joint venture merely because the joint venture’s proposal didn’t include a subcontract number for one of its past performance references. GAO held, in essence, that the missing information was irrelevant because it had no bearing on the type of work completed.
GAO’s outcome prediction alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) can be a tempting option for all parties to a protest, as it provides a preview of sorts for GAO’s written decision. A recent GAO decision, however, underscores that despite its relative informality, outcome prediction ADR can have significant repercussions on future protest developments.
GAO’s bid protest regulations provide strict timelines for filing a protest.
Typically, a protest challenging an award must be filed within 10 days after the basis of the protest is known or should have been known. There is an exception to this rule for protests filed after a debriefing, but only when a debriefing was required by the FAR. As one contractor recently discovered, where a debriefing is not required, GAO’s bid protest regulations are not nearly as forgiving.
A CIO-SP3 SB contract holder could not protest the award of a task order to a competitor because the order was valued at less than $10 million.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO confirmed that civilian task order awards–including those under CIO-SP3 SB–generally cannot be protested unless the value of the order exceeds $10 million.
Despite older case law to the contrary, the GAO ordinarily lacks jurisdiction to decide a protest challenging the award of a subcontract, even where the subcontract is alleged to have been made “for” the government, as in the case of some subcontracts awarded by DOE Management and Operation prime contractors.
In a recent decision, the GAO confirmed that, except in very narrow circumstances, it won’t decide protests challenging subcontract awards.