While most of our get-togethers these days involve mask wearing, social distancing, and even virtual happy hours, spending time with friends is a great way to keep spirits light. Unfortunately for one group of friends, their weekly hangouts led GAO to conclude in its recent decision, Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., B-418835 (Sept. 25, 2020), that NASA had to cancel a more than $650 million deal and start the procurement process all over.
Continue readingTag Archives: OCI mitigation plans
GAO: Agency Didn’t Reasonably Evaluate a Potential OCI
In all competitive procurements, agencies must identify and analyze, as soon as possible, whether a potential contractor has an actual or potential organizational conflict of interest. (OCIs come in three general varieties: unequal access to information, biased ground rules, and impaired objectivity.) If the agency finds one, it must avoid, neutralize, or mitigate the potential OCI to ensure fairness.
As one recent GAO decision illustrates, an agency’s failure to reasonably investigate a potential OCI can lead to a sustained protest.
Continue readingVA CVE SDVOSB Verification Contractor Eliminated For OCI
An incumbent contractor performing VA CVE SDVOSB verification functions was ineligible to be be re-awarded an order for those services because of an unmitigated organizational conflict of interest.
In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims upheld the VA’s decision to cancel the award to the incumbent contractor and exclude that contractor from the follow-on order.
Generic OCI Mitigation Plan Torpedoes Contractor’s Award
OCI mitigation plans are one of the most common ways for contractors to address any actual, potential or apparent organizational conflicts of interest that could arise if the contractor won the award. For busy contractors, it’s tempting to simply cobble together a generic OCI mitigation plan, perhaps borrowing liberally from whatever questionable websites pop up in a Google search. But as one contractor discovered in a GAO bid protest decision, an insufficient OCI mitigation plan can lead to very bad results.