Bid Protests

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Contractors who have filed or have considered filing a Bid Protest based on a mistake by an agency know that they have very little time to recognize an issue and take action before the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

  • Typically, a protest challenging the award of a contract must be filed within 10 days (calendar, not

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Bid protests at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have spawned a distinct area of the law.  With multiple evaluation schemes to consider, there are an ever-growing number of strategies for disappointed offerors to challenge alleged agency procurement errors.

Just like there are best practices for bid protests, there are also strategies to avoid at all…

Federal procurements often include a competitive range of offerors seeking the contract award.  The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) competitive range procedure offers the agency an incremental stage in the competition where it can pare down a large pool of offerors into a narrow group consisting of only those proposals with a reasonable chance of receiving…

In today’s Federal marketplace, it is very common to see solicitations that give the Agency the option of entering into discussions with offerors.  The primary objective of discussions is to maximize competition and, in turn, the Agency’s ability to obtain the best possible value.

Once it makes the decision to enter into discussions, the Agency…

Two pieces of advice I often provide to government contractors are:

1.When responding to a solicitation, give the government precisely what it asks for – right down to the letter.  This includes providing the information in the correct section of your proposal.  The agency will not play hide-and-seek; and

2.  If you think there…

The most common basis to establish timeliness for a Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protest is found in Section 21.2 of the GAO’s regulations.  Under the regulation, the protester must file the protest “not later than 10 days after the basis of protest is known or should have been known”.

Important Disclaimer…

In a recent post, I discussed new legislation that could signal an uptick in Best Value procurements for complex service-based contracts.  In the view of many (including me), more Best Value RFPs is a win/win for both contractors and the government.

As a quick refresher, Best Value procurements utilize a Best Value Tradeoff…