Tag Archives: interested party

Back to Basics: Interested Parties

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Imagine you’ve submitted a bid for a procurement that you believe your company is a shoo-in for. Nobody comes close to the experience and skills your company brings to the table. A while later, you learn that the new company down the street was awarded the contract. There clearly must be a mistake. The awardee doesn’t have half the experience your company has in this industry. Feeling wronged, you decide to file a bid protest questioning the award at the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Your lawyer informs you that a bid protest may be dismissed if the protester doesn’t qualify as an interested party. But you were an actual bidder who should have been awarded the contract. Of course you’re an interested party—right?

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Rezoning (Part 2): Updates to the HUBZone Program

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Very recently, we went through some more of the potential changes to the HUBZone Program from SBA’s proposed rule from August 23, 2024. In this post, we will look at the remaining proposed changes. SBA’s proposed rule would change HUBZone protests appeals, principal office requirements (which we did discuss a bit before here), HUBZone map concepts, and the HUBZone price evaluation preference (PEP).

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GAO: Protestors Must Show Intervening Offerors Would Not be in Line for Award to be Interested Party

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In order to have a bid protest sustained, a protestor must have a reasonable chance of being awarded the contract if the protest succeeded. Often, this just means that the protestor’s own proposal must be acceptable to the awarding agency in the first place. What many contractors do not know, however, is that if intervening offerors would be in line for the award even if the protest was sustained, the protestor will not be considered an interested party by the GAO.

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Late Quotation? No Protest: Protester who Submitted Quotation Late is Not Interested Party, per GAO

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You submit a quotation after the given solicitation deadline. The solicitation includes a provision stating, in part, that late submissions will not be considered, but the Contracting Officer (CO) evaluates your quotation anyway. The CO goes with another contractor, and you submit a protest. After all, the CO evaluated your bid, you have an interest in the matter, right?

Per the GAO, you don’t, and your protest will be dismissed. D B Systems (DBS) learned this the hard way.

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Despite Your Interest in a Protest, GAO Might Not Think You’re an “Interested Party”

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Let’s suppose that you just received a new solicitation hot off the press. As you peruse it, you find a requirement that you believe is too onerous or unnecessary. So you contemplate filing a GAO protest to challenge that term.

Before doing so, be sure that you’re an “interested party” under GAO’s regulations. Well, I filed a protest, you say, doesn’t that make me an interested party? Short answer: no.

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GAO: Protester Identity Must Match Offeror Identity

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In order to protest a procurement at GAO, the protester must be an “interested party.” An interested party is an “actual or prospective bidder or offeror whose direct economic interest would be affected by the award of the contract or by the failure to award the contract.”

But does the identity of the protester have to be the same as the offeror under the procurement? GAO recently offered some guidance on that question.

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