When an initial proposal is nullified by a subsequent solicitation amendment, an offeror must timely resubmit its proposal–or be eliminated from the competition.
As one offeror recently learned, an agency can nullify initial proposals with a solicitation amendment that substantially changes the solicitaton’s terms. When that happens, an offeror can no longer rely on its initial proposal.
In a reverse auction, a bid filed literally at the last second was excluded as late, perhaps because the reverse auction system did not process the bid until a few seconds after the deadline.
As a recent GAO protest demonstrates, reverse auctions–by their very nature–encourage last-second bids, but it is the prospective contractor that may pay the price if the reverse auction system does not immediately process a bid.
A size appeal filed with the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals may be submitted by email, but it is up to the appellant to verify that its email was received.
As demonstrated in a recent size appeal decision, OHA will dismiss an appeal that is not received by OHA within 15 days of the appellant’s receipt of a size determination–even if the appellant attempted to send the size appeal by email during the 15-day window.
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.
A company on the losing end of a SBA size protest can ask the SBA Area Office that issued the decision to consider reopening the size determination case. However, the 15-day window in which to file a size appeal with the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals is not extended by virtue of a request to reopen.
In a recent decision, SBA OHA dismissed a size appeal as untimely, holding that the 15-day appeals window begins upon the receipt of the size determination–not upon the SBA Area Office’s refusal to reopen the size determination.
An unsuccessful offeror’s email to the Contracting Officer, in which the offeror expressed “concerns” about the awardee’s small business size status, was too vague to constitute an SBA size protest.
According to a recent decision of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, a viable size protest must be explicit enough to alert the Contracting Officer that the offeror is protesting the awardee’s size.
A bid protest filing with the U.S. Government Accountability Office will be deemed to be filed on a particular day if it is filed before 5:31 p.m. Eastern Standard Time , according to a recent GAO bid protest decision.
The GAO’s decision in Government Acquisitions, Inc., B-408426, B-408426.2 (Sept. 17, 2013) clarifies that the GAO’s 5:30 p.m. deadline allows for a timely filing “until the clock reaches 5:31 p.m.” Unfortunately for my own curiosity, however, the decision does not answer the more interesting question of what on earth the protester was thinking when it filed at 35 seconds after 5:30 p.m.