The U.S. Department of Agriculture improperly awarded a $141 million sole source contract in exchange for the contractor’s agreement to withdraw a GAO bid protest.
According to a recent GAO bid protest decision, the award violated the Competition in Contracting Act, which does not permit an agency to award a sole source contract in exchange for a contractor’s promise to terminate litigation against the agency.
A small business set-aside procurement did not violate the FAR’s restrictions on contract bundling, according to the GAO.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO pointed out the bundling occurs when a procurement would be unsuitable for award to small business, and held that a set-aside procurement–by its nature–is not unsuitable for small businesses.
The GAO lacks jurisdiction to decide whether an agency improperly suspended or debarred a contractor from federal government contracting.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO dismissed a protest filed by a debarred contractor, holding that the protester’s underlying challenge to its debarment was a matter for resolution by the contracting agency, not the GAO.
A bid protest filing with the U.S. Government Accountability Office will be deemed to be filed on a particular day if it is filed before 5:31 p.m. Eastern Standard Time , according to a recent GAO bid protest decision.
The GAO’s decision in Government Acquisitions, Inc., B-408426, B-408426.2 (Sept. 17, 2013) clarifies that the GAO’s 5:30 p.m. deadline allows for a timely filing “until the clock reaches 5:31 p.m.” Unfortunately for my own curiosity, however, the decision does not answer the more interesting question of what on earth the protester was thinking when it filed at 35 seconds after 5:30 p.m.
A bid bond containing an erroneous “not to exceed” limit of less than the 20 percent required by the solicitation was defective, and was properly rejected by the procuring agency.
The GAO’s recent bid protest decision in IMR Development Corporation, B-408585 (Nov. 13, 2013) is a reminder that when a bid guarantee is required, a contractor must ensure that the bid bond meets the government’s requirements.
“Bundling” under the FAR is often misunderstood. One common misconception is that any time an agency consolidates requirements from multiple contracts into a single contract unsuitable for small businesses, the consolidation is impermissible “bundling” unless the consolidated contract cannot be broken down into smaller requirements.
Unfortunately for small businesses, the FAR’s definition of bundling is not so broad. For example, as demonstrated in a recent GAO bid protest decision, a consolidation of requirements being performed by large businesses likely will not qualify as impermissible bundling.
A contractor’s alleged breach of its teaming agreement did not provide a basis for the agency to conclude that a Procurement Integrity Act violation had occurred.
According to a recent GAO bid protest decision, even if a teammate misuse voluntarily provided confidential information, the misuse does not violate the Procurement Integrity Act. Moreover, the GAO considers an allegation regarding the breach of a teaming agreement to be a private dispute, falling outside of the GAO’s bid protest jurisdiction.