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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/

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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/

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Defense authorization bill allows pilot program on curbing bid protests

Buried in the $700 billion fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization bill that House-Senate conferees unveiled on Wednesday is a compromise on disputed language aimed at reducing the number of time-consuming contractor bid protests.

Contractors, contracting officers and staff of the Government Accountability Office — which adjudicates the protests filed by companies that lose out on an award — had been awaiting the fate of language in the Senate version that would have required companies larger than $100 million in the previous year’s revenues that protest unsuccessfully to pay the costs of processing the protest at Defense and GAO.

Too many “frivolous” protests cause delays in the procurement of weapons systems, the unnamed senators argued.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/defense/2017/11/defense-authorization-bill-allows-pilot-program-curbing-bid-protests/142445

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GAO denies Equifax bid protest on IRS contract

The Government Accountability Office Monday denied a bid protest embattled consumer credit reporting company Equifax filed with the IRS in July after it lost a taxpayer identification and verification services contract to Experian Information Solutions.  

GAO’s decision allows the IRS to begin in earnest working with Experian on a one-year contract worth up to $795,000.

Last week, the IRS told lawmakers the pending protest was the reason it awarded Equifax a $7 million sole-source contract on Sept. 29 to continue providing critical services. The IRS quickly suspended the contract after lawmakers questioned why the agency would award such an important contract to a company that exposed the records of 145 million Americans in the fall.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2017/10/gao-denies-equifax-bid-protest-irs-contract/141807/

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Defense contractors could face pay-back clause for losing bid protests

Congress could make it more difficult for companies to protest contract awards, particularly those made by defense and military agencies.

Language within the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act would reform the way the Government Accountability Office addresses bid protests, which have increased with frequency in recent years.

The NDAA language would “require contractors who file bid protests with the Government Accountability Office on a contract with the Department of Defense to pay to the Department of Defense costs incurred for processing a protest at the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Defense when such a protest is filed by a party with revenues in excess of $100 million during the previous year where all of the elements of such protest are denied” by GAO.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2017/10/defense-contractors-could-face-pay-back-clause-losing-bid-protests/141675

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