The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, Crowell’s Government Contracts Practice will keep you up to date with a summary of one of the most notable bid protest sustain decisions each month. Below, Crowell Consultant Cherie Owen discusses GAO’s decision in Perimeter
Most protests involve competitive procurements and the many rules governing how agencies are to conduct such procurements. In certain circumstances, agencies are permitted to bypass some of these rules and limit competition. But, as GAO noted in a recently issued sustain decision, the authority to use noncompetitive procedures does not provide the agency carte blanche.Continue Reading GAO Finds Authority to Use Noncompetitive Procedures Is Not Carte Blanche
The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, 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 Consultant Cherie Owen discusses GAO’s decision in Metris LLC, in which GAO sustained a protest challenging agency corrective action.Continue Reading February 2025 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month: A Successful Corrective Action Challenge
The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, 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 Consultant Cherie Owen discusses The Mission Essential Group, LLC, B-422698.2, Jan. 8, 2025, 2025 CPD ¶ 23, which provides useful insight into the possibility of challenging the evaluation scheme identified in a solicitation.Continue Reading January 2025 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month: Successfully Challenging an LPTA Evaluation Scheme
In MVL USA, Inc. et al. v. United States, the United States Court of Federal Claims (“COFC”) held that the provisions of FAR 22.505, 52.222-33 and 52.222-34 (collectively, the “PLA mandate”), which required the use of project labor agreements (“PLAs”) on large-scale federal construction projects valued above or at a certain threshold, violated the Competition in Contracting Act (“CICA”). As we previously reported here, former-President Biden issued Executive Order 14063 in February 2022, instructing federal agencies to require construction contractors and subcontractors on projects valued at $35 million or more to “agree, for that project, to negotiate or become a party to” a PLA. A few months later, the FAR Council promulgated a final rule implementing the executive order in FAR 22.505, 52.222-33 and 52.222-34. Continue Reading COFC Holds That Federal PLA Mandate Is Unlawful; Reinterprets Blue and Gold Waiver Rule
The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, 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 Consultant Cherie Owen discusses Spatial Front, Inc., B-422058.4, B-422058.5, Dec. 6, 2024, 2024 CPD ¶ 30, in which GAO sustained a protest where the agency awarded a contract under the Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) but the required services were outside the scope of the awardee’s FSS contract.Continue Reading December 2024 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month: Protester’s Persistence Pays Off
The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, 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 Consultant Cherie Owen discusses DecisionPoint Corporation- fka Emesec Inc., in which GAO sustained a protest where the agency failed to consider the impact of a recent corporate transaction on an offeror’s pending proposal.Continue Reading November 2024 Bid Protest Sustain of the Month: GAO Reminds Agencies that They Must Consider the Impact of a Corporate Transaction When Evaluating Proposals
The following is an installment in Crowell & Moring’s Bid Protest Sustain of the Month Series. In this series, 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 Consultant Cherie Owen discusses Hometown Veterans Medical, LLC, B-422751
On November 14, 2024, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its Annual Report on Bid Protests for Fiscal Year 2024, containing the full statistics shown below:Continue Reading 2024 GAO Bid Protest Report Shows Notable Decrease in Merit Decisions
The term “bid protest” typically calls to mind challenges to an agency’s award of a contract. But two recent GAO sustain decisions—Wilson 5 Service Company, Inc., B-422670, Sept. 25, 2024, 2024 CPD ¶ 230 and MAXIMUS Federal Services, Inc., B-422676, Sept. 16, 2024, 2024 CPD ¶ 222—highlight another impactful tool for protecting a contractor’s ability to compete fairly: pre-award challenges to ambiguous or unreasonably restrictive solicitation terms.Continue Reading Bid Protest: Unreasonable and Ambiguous Solicitation Terms Sink Procurements