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.
Continue readingTag Archives: interested party
Late Quotation? No Protest: Protester who Submitted Quotation Late is Not Interested Party, per GAO
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.
Continue readingDespite Your Interest in a Protest, GAO Might Not Think You’re an “Interested Party”
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.
Continue readingAssumed Name Results in Rejected Proposal
You know what they say about when you assume. Unfortunately, one contractor recently discovered that taking an assumed business name can have serious repercussions for proposal eligibility.
Continue readingGAO: Protester Identity Must Match Offeror Identity
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.
Get Your Novation Before Filing a Bid Protest with GAO
Only an “interested party” can bring a GAO bid protest. This generally means that a protester must be “an actual or prospective bidder or offeror” with a “direct economic interest” in the contract’s award.
You might ask: is there such a thing as an offeror without a direct economic interest in the outcome of the contract award? It can happen–and a novation may be relevant. In a recent case, GAO held that a pending novation meant that the protester didn’t meet the standard necessary to file a protest.
SBA Size Protests: Subsidiary Couldn’t File for Parent
A subsidiary cannot file an SBA size protest on behalf of its parent company.
Last week, I wrote about an SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals case holding that a parent couldn’t file a size appeal on behalf of its subsidiary. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the same principles apply to initial size protests, too.