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. In this episode, Rob Sneckenberg and Anuj Vohra discuss a recent Federal Circuit
Offerors understand that missing a submission deadline can sink even the best proposal because “late is late.” But what happens when an offeror timely emails its proposal only to have an agency server reject it without any notification to the offeror? GAO’s recent decision in Guidehouse, Inc., B-422115.2, Jan. 19, 2024, says that the proposal is still late and emphasizes the potentially draconian impact of the “late is late” rule.Continue Reading The Agency’s Email Server Ate My Proposal! – GAO Rejects Challenge to “Late is Late” Rule
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. In this episode, host Rob Sneckenberg highlights three protest trends in 2023—the Federal Circuit revisiting
On October 26, 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its Annual Report on Bid Protests for Fiscal Year 2023.
The total number of protests filed and the number of protests sustained by GAO increased significantly compared to Fiscal Year 2022—and GAO’s “Sustain Rate” jumped to 31%. GAO downplayed these increases to a degree, highlighting that it received “an unusually high number of protests challenging a single procurement”—the Department of Health and Human Services’ award of Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 4 (CIO-SP4) government-wide acquisition contracts—which resulted in over 100 sustained protests. Nonetheless, even excluding the CIO-SP4 protests, it appears that GAO’s “Effectiveness Rate” (the percentage of cases in which the protester received relief, such as voluntary corrective action or a GAO sustain) was comparable to prior years—at or near 50%. Thus, bid protests remain an important oversight mechanism for the federal procurement system.Continue Reading GAO’s Bid Protest Sustain Rate Soars, but Is There a Catch?
On September 6, 2023, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued a Class Deviation removing the FAR 52.204-7 requirement that a contractor maintain its System for Award Management (SAM) registration for the entire time from proposal submission until contract award, without any lapse. As background, FAR 52.204-7 has since 2018 provided that “[a]n Offeror is required
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. In this episode, hosts Christian Curran and Rob Sneckenberg discuss the latest Court of Federal Claims decision disagreeing with a Government Accountability Office
Federal contractors must be registered on SAM.gov to be eligible for award of federal contracts. Failure to do so can have significant consequences, as the recent U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC) decision in Myriddian, LLC v. United States, No. 23-443 makes clear.
In Myriddian, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
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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The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, signed into law on December 23, 2022, makes numerous changes to acquisition policy. Crowell & Moring’s Government Contracts Group discusses the most consequential changes for government contractors here. These include changes that provide new opportunities for contractors to recover inflation-related costs, authorize new programs for small businesses, impose new clauses or reporting requirements on government contractors, require government reporting to Congress on acquisition authorities and programs, and alter other processes and procedures to which government contractors are subject. The FY 2023 NDAA also includes the Advancing American AI Act, the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2023, and the Water Resources Development Act of 2022, all of which include provisions relevant for government contractors. Continue Reading FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act: Key Provisions Government Contractors Should Know