GAO recently sustained a bid protest to a General Services Administration (GSA) acquisition for warehousing and deployment services at the strategic national stockpile–a literal “stockpile” of the nation’s largest supply of critical pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and supplies, and emergency supplies. GSA issued this solicitation and conducted this acquisition on behalf of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), an operating agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But according to GAO, in evaluating offerors under its solicitation, here, GSA failed to provide offerors with the meaningful discussions required by the FAR. So, GAO sustained the protest and recommended that GSA: reopen the procurement to conduct meaningful discussions with offerors, accept and evaluate revised proposals after doing so, and make a new award decision on that basis.
Continue readingTag Archives: significant weakness
Protester Goes Seven for Seven in Arguments Before GAO
Veterans of the bid protest process know that it’s not uncommon for a protester to make half a dozen arguments and prevail on only one.
Know what that’s called? A win. But when a protester goes seven for seven, you have to tip your cap.
Continue readingNHO Prime Gets “Experience” Weakness Despite Experienced Affiliate
An agency was allowed to assign a Native Hawaiian-owned prime contractor a weakness for its experience because the NHO prime lacked relevant experience–even though the prime’s proposal indicated that it would rely in part on the resources of an experienced NHO sister company.
A recent GAO bid decision demonstrates that while a procuring agency is entitled to consider the experience and past performance of a prime contractor’s affiliates under certain circumstances, the agency is not precluded from considering the prime’s own experience (or lack thereof).
Agency Not Required To Re-Open Discussions To Address New Weakness
A procuring agency is not required to re-open discussions to address a weakness first presented in an offeror’s revised proposal.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that an offeror was not entitled to an additional round of discussions when an agency assigned the offeror a significant weakness for an item first included in the offeror’s revised proposal.