In Utech, Inc. v. United States, No. 24-1586 (Fed. Cir. June 24, 2026), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit clarified that in most cases, a pre-award protest must be filed before the proposal submission deadline to avoid the Blue & Gold waiver rule.  This decision, while nonprecedential, is in line with U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) precedent, which has long held that pre-award protests must be filed before the proposal submission deadline.

The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice keeps you up to date with a summary of one of the most notable bid protest decisions each month. Below, Crowell Consultant (and former GAO Bid Protest Hearing Officer) Cherie Owen discusses GAO’s May 2026 decision in Mission Analytics, LLC—Recon., where a protest filing that missed GAO’s deadline by just 50 seconds set off a chain of procedural missteps that ultimately produced five dismissals across a single procurement, and offers some of the most practical filing guidance GAO has put to paper in recent memory.

The following ’is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice keeps you up to date with a summary of one of the most notable bid protest sustain decisions each month. Below, Crowell Consultant (and former GAO Bid Protest Hearing Officer) Cherie Owen discusses GAO’s April 2026 sustain decision in Owl International Inc., d/b/a Global, a 1st Flagship Company, where the Navy’s mid-procurement course correction created a new problem – one GAO was unwilling to overlook.

On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a stark warning to government contractors: when a bid protest is filed involving your contract, failing to timely intervene can cost you the ability to defend your award.  In Global K9 Protection Group, LLC v. United States, the Federal Circuit upheld the denial of K2 Solutions, Inc.’s motion to intervene, finding that K2 had waited too long to act despite having sufficient reason to do so.

The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice keeps you up to date with a summary of one of the most notable bid protest sustain decisions each month. Below, Crowell Consultant (and former GAO Bid Protest Hearing Officer) Cherie Owen discusses GAO’s only sustain decision of March 2026, N&S Property Services, LLC, where an agency’s technical evaluation repeatedly penalized a protester for doing precisely what the solicitation required.

In a significant decision for government contractors, on April 15, 2026, in Life Science Logistics, LLC v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that bid protesters challenging an agency’s override of an automatic stay of contract performance under the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) need not satisfy the demanding four-factor test traditionally required for preliminary injunctive relief.  In so doing, the Federal Circuit clarified that CICA stay override challenges need only demonstrate that the override decision was arbitrary and capricious—nothing more.

The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series.  In this series, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice keeps you up to date with a summary of one of the most notable bid protest sustain decisions each month.  Below, Crowell Consultant (and former GAO Bid Protest Hearing Officer) Cherie Owen discusses GAO’s decision in Morrish-Wallace Construction d/b/a Ryba Marine Construction Co., where a company’s failure to acknowledge a solicitation amendment proved fatal to its bid.