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.
A large business lacked standing to protest an award made under a small business set-aside solicitation, according to a recent GAO bid protest decision.
In Creative Computing Solutions, Inc., B-408704, B-408704.2 (Nov. 6, 2013), the GAO dismissed a bid protest filed by a large business, finding that the protester would not be in line for award even if the protest was sustained.
The GAO has dismissed a bid protest alleging that the awardee of a Defense Logistics Agency contract was not registered in the E-Verify system.
According to the GAO, a contractor’s E-Verify registration is a matter of contract administration to be addressed after award, and thus outside of the GAO’s bid protest jurisdiction.
An alleged adulterous relationship between a Navy program manager and a contractor support employee did not provide a basis to challenge the Navy’s award to a different contractor.
The GAO’s recent decision in Harris IT Services Corporation, B-408546.2, B-408546.3 (Oct. 31, 2013) involved more salacious allegations than one typically encounters in a bid protest case, but the GAO’s ruling was no surprise: after all, the awardee was not the company employing the allegedly unfaithful employee.
I often caution would-be bid protesters that when it comes to “best value” procurements, the GAO gives agencies wide discretion to pay a price premium for a proposal evaluated as superior.
Case in point: a recent bid protest decision in which the GAO upheld the procuring agency’s decision to pay a whopping 72.6% price premium.