Bid Protest | The Contracting Education Academy

March 28, 2018 By cs

When it comes to bid protests, Section 809 panel should follow data

The Section 809 Panel released its first of three reports in January aimed at improving and streamlining Defense Department acquisition across the government. The initial report was well-received for good reason. Through a careful analysis, it recommended bold and much-needed reform to the regulations underpinning everything DoD buys.

These recommendations ranged from reducing the regulations that encumber contracts for commercial products and services to making DoD’s treatment of contractors’ intellectual property more consistent with the commercial marketplace.

For the uninitiated, the Section 809 Panel, whose members were appointed by DoD and represent experts across the government contracting field, derives its name from the section in the 2016 National Defense Authorization (NDAA) that created the panel. Among the panel’s mandates is to streamline the acquisition process while protecting “the best interests of the Department of Defense.”

It is no secret that the Section 809 Panel also is looking at the bid protest system as part of its mandate. And it is also no secret that DoD takes a dim view of the current bid protest system. It is not a stretch to believe that, in DoD’s view, significant changes to protests would be in its “best interest.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/commentary/2018/03/when-it-comes-to-bid-protests-section-809-panel-should-follow-data/

January 9, 2018 By cs

Study: Bid protests are rare, aren’t frivolous

A congressionally-mandated report on bid protests in the Defense Department appears to validate a view long held by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and many government contractors: protests are not an excessive burden on the Defense procurement system, and notwithstanding some exceptions, companies are not abusing the process.

The study, conducted by the RAND Corporation, was ordered as part of the 2017 Defense authorization bill as a compromise to senators who’d introduced legislation that would have restrained companies’ ability to file protests. It found that while protests have been steadily increasing since 2008, the rate at which companies have succeeded in using them to convince the government to alter its procurement decisions or provide some other relief has stayed constant.

“If the increases were due to [frivolous] protests, the effectiveness rate should be falling, which it is not,” the authors wrote. “One possible explanation is that firms are more willing to protest procurements, where, before, they refrained from doing so due to either the costs involved or the potential for creating ill will with the customer.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/contracting/2018/01/rand-study-bid-protests-are-rare-arent-frivolous/

December 22, 2017 By cs

GAO: Email delivery receipt didn’t confirm proposal submission

When an offeror submits a proposal by email, does a delivery receipt mean that the agency necessarily received the proposal in its inbox?

At least under the facts of one recent GAO bid protest, the answer was “no.”

In that case, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) held that an email delivery receipt wasn’t sufficient to demonstrate that the agency received the electronic proposal.

In ManTech Advanced Systems International, Inc., B-414985, (Oct. 20, 2017), the GAO examined a proposal submitted by ManTech to provide cyber security services to the Air Force. ManTech submitted its proposal under a task order solicitation issued under the Air Force’s Cyber Security and Information Systems Technical Tasks IDIQ.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-email-delivery-receipt-didnt-confirm-proposal-submission/

November 29, 2017 By cs

Protests are down, but their effectiveness is up

GAO has issued its Bid Protest Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2017. Most notably, the effectiveness rate hit 47%.

The effectiveness rate looks at all cases filed, and measures the percentage of cases in which a protester obtains some relief, whether through a sustain by GAO or voluntary corrective action by the agency.

That’s right: Protesters obtained relief in almost half of all protests last year. And this year’s 47% effectiveness rate is a new all-time high — continuing a steady upward march over the past several years. When GAO began measuring the sustain rate in 2001, it was just 33%. By 2008, it had risen to 42%. It then held pretty steady through 2012, but has been rising since:

FY 2012          42%
FY 2013          43%
FY 2014          43%
FY 2015          45%
FY 2016          46%
FY 2017         47%

Meanwhile, GAO’s sustain rate looks only at those protests that reach a decision on the merits, and measures the percentage of those protests that are sustained by GAO. This year’s sustain rate dropped to 17%, but for several reasons the sustain rate has always been volatile, reaching as high as 29% and as low as 12% in the last 15 years.

So while this year’s rate of sustains by GAO dipped, the number of voluntary corrective actions went up.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2017/11/gaos-annual-report-protests-effectiveness/

When an offeror submits a proposal by email, does a delivery receipt mean that the agency necessarily received the proposal in its inbox?

GAO has issued its Bid Protest Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2017. Most notably, the effectiveness rate hit 47%.

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