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 Kupono Gov’t Servs., LLC; Akima Sys. Eng’g, LLC, in which GAO sustained a challenge to an agency’s corrective action.   

June 2023 may go down in history as the month with the highest sustain rate in GAO’s history – if GAO published monthly sustain rate data, that is.  Although GAO issued a handful of sustained decisions, one of those decisions is likely to drive GAO’s “sustain rate” statistic through the roof this year: Systems Plus, Inc. et al., which sustained 98 protests and supplemental protests related to the Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners (CIO-SP4) procurement.  (In July, GAO issued another decision sustaining 28 additional protests and supplemental protests relating to the same procurement.)  While GAO’s CIO-SP4 decisions were interesting, they may have allowed an even more impactful sustain decision to slip under the radar. Continue Reading June 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 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, 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

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