This week’s episode covers a DHS final rule implementing measures to safeguard Controlled Unclassified Information and facilitate improved incident reporting to DHS, a letter from Silicon Valley defense technology and venture capital firms calling on DoD to better embrace and scale commercial innovation for military use, a bid protest decision in which the Court found
Crowell & Moring’s “All Things Protest” podcast keeps you up to date on major trends in bid protest litigation, key developments in high-profile cases, and best practices in state and federal procurement.
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The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. All through 2023, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice will keep you up to date with a summary of the most notable bid protest sustain decision each month. Below, Crowell Partner Cherie Owen and Summer Associate Riley Flewelling discuss GAO’s decision sustaining the protest of Veteran’s Management, Inc. (“VMI”).
May closed with an impressive number publicly released GAO sustain decisions, but one stood above the rest. In Veteran’s Management, Inc., GAO clarified the requirements of agency evaluations under FAR 52.222-45, and revisited the definition of a “professional employee” discussed in GAO’s Sabre Systems, Inc. decision released earlier this year.
Continue Reading May 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month
The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. All through 2023, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice will keep you up to date with a summary of the most notable bid protest sustain decision each month. Below, Government Contracts Partner Cherie Owen and Summer Associate Olivia Venus discuss a U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) sustain decision involving the conduct of discussions.
In Life Science Logistics, LLC(“LSL”) GSA sought proposals for services to support disaster relief efforts. Among other things, proposals were to include blueprint drawings for a proposed warehouse. After receiving and evaluating initial proposals, GSA conducted discussions with both offerors. GSA made award to Integrated Quality Solutions LLC (IQS), and LSL protested.
In response to LSL’s initial protest of the award to IQS, the Agency took voluntary corrective action. It amended the solicitation to specify its blueprint requirements and conducted a reevaluation of each technical proposal. In the initial evaluation, LSL received slightly lower ratings than IQS, but achieved “good” ratings overall. Upon reevaluation, however, the Agency assigned several significant weaknesses to LSL’s technical proposal and assigned a rating of “not acceptable.”
Continue Reading April 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month
The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. All through 2023, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice will keep you up to date with a summary of the most notable bid protest sustain decision each month. Below, Crowell Partner Cherie Owen discusses GAO’s decision sustaining the protest of BC Site Services, LLC, (BCSS) in which GAO found that an agency’s exchanges with offerors – even though not labeled as such – constituted discussions.
Continue Reading March 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month
Good news for potential protesters at the Court of Federal Claims (CFC). On May 10, 2023, in CACI, Inc.-Federal v. United States, No. 2022-1488, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a sweeping decision holding questions of protester standing and prejudice are merits issues that do not implicate the CFC’s jurisdiction. In so doing, the Federal Circuit declared decades of prior jurisprudence holding the opposite “no longer good law.” (For a more in-depth discussion of CACI, you can listen to Crowell’s latest All Things Protest podcast.)
Continue Reading The Federal Circuit Reconsiders the Impact of Standing and Prejudice on the Court of Federal Claims’ Bid Protest Jurisdiction
Crowell & Moring’s “All Things Protest” podcast keeps you up to date on major trends in bid protest litigation, key developments in high-profile cases, and best practices in state and federal procurement.
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This week’s episode covers a final rule amending the DFARS to incorporate the expanded capabilities of the Supplier Performance Risk System and requirements on contracting officers, a bid protest decision at the Court of Federal Claims regarding standing, and a GAO protest decision about the Procurement Integrity Act, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and
Last week, on March 9, 2023, in Percipient.ai, Inc. v. United States, the Court of Federal Claims held that Percipient.ai, Inc. (“Percipient”) had standing to protest a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (“NGA”) procurement called “SAFFIRE” intended to improve the agency’s production, storage, and integration of geospatial intelligence data. Percipient’s complaint, filed in January of this year, argued that SAFFIRE violates the statutory mandate at 10 U.S.C. § 3453 to procure commercial items “to the maximum extent practicable.” The Court’s conclusion that Percipient had standing to protest is notable because (1) NGA issued the SAFFIRE solicitation in January 2020 (over three years ago); (2) NGA awarded the SAFFIRE contract to CACI, Inc. – Federal (“CACI”) in January 2021 (over two years ago); and (3) Percipient never submitted a proposal in response to the solicitation.
The Government and CACI moved to dismiss Percipient’s complaint, arguing, among other things, that Percipient lacked standing to protest because it had not submitted a proposal and therefore was not an “interested party,” and because the protest—filed two years after contract award—was in fact a challenge to NGA’s administration of the SAFFIRE contract. The Government and CACI also argued that the protest was untimely under the Federal Circuit’s decision in Blue & Gold Fleet, L.P. v. United States, 492 F.3d 1308 (Fed. Cir. 2007), which generally requires that protests challenging the terms of a solicitation be filed before the proposal due date.
Continue Reading Court of Federal Claims Holds Non-Bidder Has Standing to Protest Two Years After Contract Award
The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. All through 2023, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice will keep you up to date with a summary of the most notable bid protest sustain decision each month. Below, Crowell Partner Cherie Owen discusses a GAO reconsideration decision involving a prior sustain based on an offeror’s material misrepresentation.
Although GAO kicked off 2023 with 3 sustain decisions, February brought a sustain drought – GAO’s public docket shows that GAO did not sustain any protests in the second month of 2023. At first blush, this could appear to be disheartening to would-be protesters. However, the outlook is not as gloomy as it seems. First, it’s important to remember that GAO’s “effectiveness rate” (which measures the percentage of protests that result in some form of relief for the protester, such as voluntary agency corrective action or a sustained decision) consistently hovers near 50%. Thus, even in the absence of written sustain decisions, there were undoubtedly a number of protests that resulted in corrective action during the month. Second, GAO’s docket reflects that the sustain drought has already ended – GAO sustained a protest on March 1. Although that decision is still under the Protective Order and has not yet been released publicly, potential protesters can rest assured that the drought was short-lived.
Continue Reading February 2023 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month