Negotiation | The Contracting Education Academy

January 23, 2014 By AMK

United Technologies begins appeal of $664 million False Claims Act judgment

United Technologies has filed its appeal brief – albeit incorrectly – in a False Claims Act lawsuit brought by the United States that resulted in a $664 million judgment against the company.

The verdict, reached in June after a bench trial in federal court in Dayton, Ohio, was touted by the Department of Justice when it announced in December that Fiscal Year 2013 saw a record $3.8 billion recovered as a result of False Claims Act lawsuits.

The case against United Technologies was filed in 1999 and alleged it made false statements to the Air Force while negotiating a contract for fighter jet engines.

According to the appeal’s docket at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the brief is not available because of errors contained within it.

Keep reading this article at: http://legalnewsline.com/news/federal-government/246569-united-technologies-begins-appeal-of-664m-false-claims-act-judgment

November 26, 2013 By AMK

Federal judge: IBM had ‘no substantial chance’ of winning CIA cloud contract

IBM comes under stark judgment in the Court of Federal Claims decision regarding the company’s protest against the CIA’s February award to Amazon Web Services of a long-term cloud computing contract.

In a redacted decision (.pdf) posted online Nov. 8, Judge Thomas Wheeler says IBM manipulated its pricing proposal to create a bid protest issue and dismisses IBM arguments that it didn’t do so with the conclusion that “the Court does not see any other explanation for IBM’s final pricing strategy.” The contract is worth up to $600 million in its first four years and could potentially last a decade.

The Government Accountability Office’s decision to uphold IBM’s protest also comes under criticism, with Wheeler stating that the GAO’s June decision to sustain in part the protest lacked a rational basis and that IBM lacked standing to protest, since its proposal had no substantial chance of winning the award in the first place. Among other factors, IBM offered a low initial price to the CIA while including a contract clause in its proposal calling for negotiation of higher prices in later years.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/federal-judge-ibm-had-no-substantial-chance-winning-cia-cloud-contract/2013-11-10

June 25, 2013 By AMK

Could IG report squelch contractor communications?

A recent GSA Inspector General report recommending stricter communications rules for the agency’s procurement personnel might have the unintended consequence of complicating the open exchanges between private contractors and GSA staff that the agency has hoped to foster.

The June 4, 2013 IG report recommended the Federal Acquisition Service implement new guidelines and practices to put more limits on contact and communications among its contracting personnel. The recommendation came because the IG had found some FAS managers had improperly stepped into negotiations between contracting employees and federal contractors. The report contained what some observers called “jarring” language about tense interactions among GSA procurement personnel and private contractors.

Some familiar with the federal procurement environment say that while the report is a case-specific instance of the GSA rightly enforcing its rules against undue strong-arming by GSA contracting managers, it could set back broader efforts to encourage communications between federal procurement personnel and contractors.

According to the IG, one FAS supervisor has been placed on administrative leave after intervening in negotiations, pressuring an FAS contracting officer to accept federal IT contracts with less-than-favorable terms. Further, some GSA subordinate employees said they feared for their jobs if they did not go along with managers, the IG found.

Keep reading this article at: http://fcw.com/Articles/2013/06/07/contractor-agency-communications-gsa-IG.aspx?Page=1

Resources:

GSA IG report

Myth-Busting memo

Myth-Busting Second Memo

June 10, 2013 By AMK

FAS management pressured officers to award contracts

The Federal Acquisition Service overrode its contracting officers and pressured them to extend or award schedules contracts based on complaints from contractors, a June 4 General Services Administration office of inspector general report (.pdf) says.

FAS management allowed contractors to circumvent contracting officers when the contractors disagreed with contracting staff determinations and supported the contractors’ positions, including by reassigning contracts to different contracting officers, the report says.

In each reassignment case, the new contracting officer awarded or extended contracts without properly addressing significant issues identified by previous contracting officers, the report says. The result, auditors add, is that GSA signed or extended schedules contracts with inflated pricing or unfavorable terms.

The report focuses on three large information technology schedule contracts that represented over $900 million in contract sales in calendar year 2011–a Oracle services contract that garnered $358.4 million worth of business, Carahsoft Technology with $432 million worth of sales, and a Deloitte Consulting contract worth $119.5 million that year.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/fas-management-pressured-officers-award-contracts-based/2013-06-04

October 22, 2012 By AMK

Pentagon not properly monitoring sole-source contracts, audit finds

The Defense Department is inadequately following guidance on single-bid contracts and failing to encourage the type of competition that saves taxpayer dollars, the inspector general’s office found in a recent audit.

In a review of 107 contracts valued at nearly $1.4 billion, along with another half-billion dollars’ worth of contract modifications, the IG determined that the military’s competition advocates failed to follow single-bid guidance in 31 cases. The Pentagon also neglected to “develop adequate plans to increase competition because Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) did not provide effective oversight of the plans,” the report said. And Defense officials did not develop specific steps to improve competition rates in their plans or “develop specific steps to prevent 39 of 47 contract modifications, valued at $390.9 million, from exceeding the three-year limitation on awarding contract modifications without first recompeting.”

The IG recommended improved monitoring and creation of an overall schedule on altering contracts. The service largely agreed.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2012/10/pentagon-not-properly-monitoring-sole-source-contracts-audit-finds/58819/?oref=national_defense_nl.

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