GAO: Email Filings Must Timely Arrive At Official Address

When bid protest document is emailed to the GAO, the document must timely arrive at the GAO’s official protest email address (protests@gao.gov), or the document is not timely filed.

As one protester recently learned the hard way, a GAO protest filing cannot be accomplished by emailing a protest document to any other email address–including the individual “gao.gov” email address of the GAO attorney handling the protest.

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GAO Task Order Jurisdiction: No Exception For “Bridge” Order

The GAO lacked jurisdiction to consider the protest of a “bridge” task order valued under $10 million, even though the original order related to the bridge exceeded the $10 million threshold.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that it had no legal basis to consider the value of the original order in determining whether it had jurisdiction to decide a protest related to a bridge order.

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GAO Task Order Protests: Protester’s Price Does Not Establish Jurisdiction

The GAO’s jurisdiction over task order protests turns on whether the award price of the task order exceeds $10 million–not whether the protester’s proposed price exceeds $10 million.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that it lacked jurisdiction over a task order protest because the award price was under $10 million, even though the protester had proposed a price of approximately $11.4 million.

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GAO: Pre-Debriefing Bid Protest Was Premature

A GAO bid protest was dismissed as premature because the protest was filed before a statutorily-required debriefing was held.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO determined that the protest was premature even though the required debriefing had been delayed pending the resolution of a SBA size protest.

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GAO Won’t Reconsider Federal Courts’ Decisions In Job Corps Set-Aside Cases

The GAO will not reconsider a bid protest that has been litigated in the Court of Federal Claims and affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO dismissed a protest challenging the Department of Labor’s decision to set aside two solicitations for small businesses, because the federal courts had already ruled that the set-asides were appropriate.

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GAO Bid Protests: No Small Business Size Challenges (Usually)

To regular SmallGovCon readers this may seem obvious, but protesters keep doing it, so it deserves a post.

By “it,” I mean filing small business size challenges as part of GAO bid protests.  As demonstrated once again in a recent GAO bid protest decision, the GAO typically lacks jurisdiction over size challenges, which must be filed with the SBA.

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GAO Lacks Jurisdiction Over Debarment Disputes

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.

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