GAO. Protest | The Contracting Education Academy

March 30, 2018 By AMK

GAO’s electronic bid protest filing system: First impressions

SmallGovCon readers may recall that, in 2016, the Government Accountability Office proposed an electronic filing system for bid protests. GAO released a pilot version of its new system earlier this year, and Koprince Law LLC has had the opportunity to test it on several occasions through our bid protest work.

Here are some first impressions on GAO’s Electronic Protest Docketing System.

EPDS is very functional and easy to use. If you’ve ever clicked a link, selected an option from a drop-down menu, and uploaded a document to a website, you’d have no problems using the system. But even if you did run into trouble, GAO has published a comprehensive user guide and videos that thoroughly explain how to use the system.

Upon logging in, the user’s dashboard displays a list of each protest it has pending before GAO. This list provides basic information about the protest—GAO’s docket number (or “B-number”), identification of the protester and agency, filing date, next due date, and case status. From this page, users can also file a new protest (once that feature is active upon EPDS’s formal roll-out) or intervene in a protest that’s currently pending.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gaos-electronic-filing-system-first-impressions/

October 26, 2016 By AMK

Relying on bid protests is ‘absurd’

Former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra is not a fan of the contracting community’s increasing reliance on bid protests as a means to delay new contracts and capture taxpayer dollars as long as possible.

bad-behavior “This protest thing really ticks me off; it is so pathetic,” Chopra said Oct. 6 on a panel hosted by Nextgov and Government Executive. “It’s absolutely absurd how the culture of PhD procurement physics works in this town. Ninety percent of them don’t actually go anywhere but they delay everything.”

Chopra made the remarks on a panel assessing President Barack Obama’s IT legacy. In an increasingly competitive market amid government shutdowns and dwindling budgets, bid protests in the federal government have increased 60 percent since fiscal 2008. But their success rate—how often the Government Accountability Office sustains them—has declined from 21 percent in fiscal 2008 to 13 percent in fiscal 2015, according to Deltek data.

GAO said contractors filed 1,652 protests in fiscal 2008; they filed 2,639 in fiscal 2015. Those numbers led top contracting officials at the General Services Administration to suggest in August that agencies should build protest periods into their contracting schedules.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2016/10/aneesh-chopra-relying-bid-protests-absurd/132433

April 24, 2015 By AMK

Agencies may evaluate proposals during GAO protests, says court

A procuring agency was entitled to evaluate proposals during the course of a pre-award GAO bid protest without violating the automatic stay provision of the Competition in Contracting Act.

According to a recent federal court decision, CICA merely prohibits the award of a contract during the course of a GAO protest, but does not prevent an agency from continuing to evaluate proposals.

The decision of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Caddell Construction Co., LLC v. United States, Nos. 15-135 C & 15-136 C (2015) involved a State Department solicitation to construct embassy facilities in Mozambique. Caddell Construction Co., Inc. filed two pre-award GAO protests challenging the pre-qualification of two of its competitors.

While the GAO was in the process of evaluating the protests, Caddell learned that the agency was continuing to evaluate proposals while it awaited the GAO’s decisions. Caddell filed an action in the Court of Federal Claims, arguing that the agency was violating the CICA automatic stay provision.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/agencies-may-evaluate-proposals-during-gao-protests-says-court/

Former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra is not a fan of the contracting community’s increasing reliance on bid protests as a means to delay new contracts and capture taxpayer dollars as long as possible.

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