Bid Protest | The Contracting Education Academy

November 29, 2018 By cs

Poor debriefings spur bid protests

Just how bad are debriefings?

Pretty bad and possibly getting worse.

That’s the general conclusion of Washington Technology’s Insider Report on post-award debriefings and bid protests.

As the findings show, poor debriefings often lead to bid protests. So while bid protests often are criticized, they are really a symptom of a problem and not the main problem.

Generally, companies don’t want to protest. The research showed that a nearly three-quarters felt protests damaged the long-term relationship, but nearly the same percentage said they would protest again.

That tells us how important quality debriefings are. Companies want is to hear from their customers how their proposal fell short. This kind of feedback can change how companies do business, what kind of solutions they develop and even who they team with.

Keep reading this article at: https://washingtontechnology.com/blogs/editors-notebook/2018/10/debriefing-special-report.aspx

October 17, 2018 By cs

Pragmatism wins the day in GAO Buy American protest

Last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a bid protest decision regarding the application of Buy American Act (BAA) requirements to a solicitation for construction. In this decision, GAO rejected the agency’s determination that an offeror’s bid was nonresponsive because the offeror failed to provide certain required information for the evaluation of a potential BAA exception.

A summary of the decision and our takeaways are below.

Passed in 1933 during the Great Depression, the BAA was designed to support United States labor and manufacturing by establishing certain federal government procurement requirements related to the purchase of domestic supplies and the incorporation of domestic materials into construction projects in the United States.

With respect to construction projects, FAR subpart 25.2 requires contractors to incorporate “domestic construction materials,” unless the contracting officer determines that an exception applies or the requirements are otherwise waived by the Trade Agreements Act (TAA), as implemented in FAR subpart 25.4.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/10/pragmatism-wins-day-gao-buy-american-protest/

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/

Just how bad are debriefings?

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.

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