Competition in Contracting Act

Subscribe to Competition in Contracting Act
Photo of Rob Sneckenberg

In its annual report to Congress under the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, 31 U.S.C. § 3554(e)(2), GAO disclosed the following bid protest statistics for FYs 2009-2013:

For the first time since FY 2006, the number of cases filed in FY 2013 decreased from the previous year (the FY 2005 – FY 2009 statistics, and C&M’s analysis thereof, are available here). However, it’s too early to tell whether the 2% downturn in protests filed was an anomaly, a result of sequestration (including furloughs of personnel with acquisition responsibilities) or impending government shutdown, or simply an inevitable leveling-off after multiple record years of protest filings.
Continue Reading GAO Releases Protest Statistics for FY 2013

Photo of James G. Peyster

CORRECTION (5/15/12): A prior version of this blog post first posted on May 11, 2012, analyzed the proposed amendment to the Tucker Act discussed herein under the mistaken impression that it had been part of the committee mark version of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. We have since learned that the proposed amendment to the Tucker Act was not included in the bill that went to committee vote. The below analysis has been altered to examine the proposed legislation in the proper context. We apologize for the error.

On April 25, 2012, the Department of Defense submitted proposed legislation to the House Armed Services Committee for consideration in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would dramatically amend the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b), by importing essentially all of the GAO’s rigid timeliness rules with regard to bid protest actions and applying them to protests filed before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (COFC). Amongst the GAO timeliness rules currently contained in 4 C.F.R. § 21 that DoD proposed to be added to the Tucker Act and apply to the COFC include: 

  • The absolute rule that pre-award solicitation challenges must be filed before the submission date for proposals; 
  • The rule that any post-award protest must be filed within 10 days of when an offeror knows or should have known of the basis for protest, unless subject to a mandatory debriefing, in which case the protest must be filed within 10 days of that debriefing, and;
  • In the event that an agency protest has been filed, the rule that a COFC protest must be filed within 10 days of when the offeror knew or should have known of the adverse decision in the agency protest. 

Continue Reading Proposed Revisions to the Tucker Act Would Dramatically Change the Bid Protest Landscape