Bid Protest | The Contracting Education Academy

October 11, 2018 By cs

2nd protest filed against Pentagon’s proposed single cloud acquisition

IBM filed a bid protest Wednesday against the Pentagon’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract.

The pre-award protest, filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Oct. 10, 2018, comes just two days before the Oct. 12 deadline for the Pentagon to accept bids from cloud service providers. IBM officials told Nextgov they still plan to submit a bid for JEDI, but the company’s protest takes issue with the Defense Department’s decision to award JEDI to a single cloud service provider.

“JEDI’s primary flaw lies in mandating a single cloud environment for up to 10 years,” said Sam Gordy, General Manager for IBM Federal, in a blog post announcing the protest. “Leading global enterprises want clouds that are flexible, provide access to the best applications from multiple vendors, and can smoothly transition legacy systems. JEDI is a complete departure from these best practices.”

Oracle, another JEDI competitor, protested the JEDI solicitation in August on similar grounds. Oracle has subsequently filed a series of amended protests in the months since under legal seal, with a final decision expected from GAO by mid-November.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/10/ibm-files-bid-protest-against-pentagons-jedi-contract/151908/

July 18, 2018 By cs

Senate largely leaves bid protests alone in passed version of FY19 NDAA after threatening major revisions

For the first time in several years, the version of the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that just passed the Senate does not contain any major reforms to limit bid protests.

But the bill the Senate sent to the conference committee process does contain two provisions aimed at bid protests. Although they are minor, they portend and may lay the groundwork for future attempts to change the protest process.

Both provisions call for further study of issues addressed in the RAND Corporation’s January 2018 bid protest report.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/07/senate-largely-leaves-bid-protests-alone-in-passed-version-of-fy-2019-ndaa-after-threatening-major-revisions/

May 22, 2018 By cs

DoD implements FY18 NDAA requirement for post-debriefing Q&A process

This past March marked the beginning of a more fulsome required debriefing process for defense contracts.

The Director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) issued a class deviation memorandum, effective March 22, 2008, requiring contracting officers to: (1) provide unsuccessful offerors an opportunity to submit additional questions within two days after receiving a debriefing; and (2) hold the debriefing open until the agency delivers written responses. The class deviation implements Section 818 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (NDAA).

Federal agencies have long been required to debrief unsuccessful bidders after it awards a contract on the “basis of a competitive proposals.” And the existing FAR provisions applicable to such debriefings, FAR 15.505 and 15.506, already require agencies to include, as part of the debriefing process, “reasonable responses to relevant questions about whether source selection procedures were followed . . . .”

In practice, however, agencies regularly ignore that requirement — often providing a limited written debriefing, declaring the debriefing closed with no opportunity for questions, and thereby putting the disappointed offeror on a 5-day clock to protest, without all the information to which it is entitled.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/05/questions-department-defense-implements-fy-2018-ndaa-requirement-post-debriefing-qa-process/

May 11, 2018 By cs

FAR rule implements higher dollar threshold for GAO’s protest jurisdiction over DoD, NASA, Coast Guard task orders

In a new rule announced May 1, the FAR Council implemented prior statutory changes to GAO’s bid protest jurisdiction.

For task orders issued by the Department of Defense, NASA, or the Coast Guard, the rule provides that GAO will have jurisdiction only over task orders “valued in excess of $25 million.”

For civilian agencies, GAO continues to have jurisdiction over protests of task orders “valued in excess of $10 million.” The rule also permanently repeals a pre-existing FAR clause that had set a September 30, 2016 expiration date on the ability to protest civilian agency task orders.

The new rule — codified as FAR 16.505(a)(10) — implements Section 835 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, which directed the FAR Council to establish the new DoD, NASA, and Coast Guard threshold. (The sunset date for protests of civilian agency task orders had previously been repealed by the GAO Civilian Task and Delivery Order Protest Authority Act of 2016.) According to the FAR Council, its new rule is designed to “follow[] the statute exactly.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/05/new-far-rule-implements-increased-minimum-dollar-threshold-for-gaos-protest-jurisdiction-over-dod-nasa-and-coast-guard-task-orders/

May 8, 2018 By cs

GAO releases updated bid protest guide

Coinciding with the May 1, 2018 requirement that Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protests be filed using the new Electronic Protest Docketing System (EPDS), the GAO has released an updated version of its “Descriptive Guide” to the GAO bid protest process.

This Guide – the tenth edition published by GAO – is packed with useful information and tips about using EPDS and about the protest process in general.

A few EPDS-specific highlights follow.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-releases-updated-bid-protest-guide/

IBM filed a bid protest Wednesday against the Pentagon’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract.

For the first time in several years, the version of the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that just passed the Senate does not contain any major reforms to limit bid protests.

This past March marked the beginning of a more fulsome required debriefing process for defense contracts.

In a new rule announced May 1, the FAR Council implemented prior statutory changes to GAO’s bid protest jurisdiction.

Coinciding with the May 1, 2018 requirement that Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protests be filed using the new Electronic Protest Docketing System (EPDS), the GAO has released an updated version of its “Descriptive Guide” to the GAO bid protest process.

Search this Website