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GAO decision illustrates breadth of agency discretion in past performance evaluations

October 20, 2016 By Andrew Smith

past-performance-relevanceIn the recent bid protest decision of Halbert Construction Company Inc., the Government Accountability Office (GAO) illustrated the breadth of a procuring agency’s discretion in conducting a past performance evaluation.

Halbert Construction brought the protest after being excluded from the competitive range, arguing primarily that the Navy unreasonably included a non-relevant prior project in the past performance evaluation which led to Halbert Construction’s exclusion.  The GAO sustained the protest based on the well- established principle that offerors must be treated equally because the Navy excluded another offeror’s past performance reference from the evaluation as not relevant under the solicitation’s relevancy criteria but then failed to do the same for the protestor.

More notable than the relatively straight-forward application of the disparate treatment principle was the decision’s discussion of the very broad discretion of agencies in past performance evaluations.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2016/10/gao-decision-illustrates-breadth-agency-discretion-past-performance-evaluations/

Filed Under: Contracting Tips Tagged With: design-build, disparate treatment, DoD, evaluation, evaluation criteria, GAO, NAICS, Navy, past performance, performance, proposal evaluation

Ten bid protest trends and tips

August 28, 2015 By Andrew Smith

It is no secret that federal procurement spending has dropped considerably in recent years. With less dollars being spent and fewer procurements, government contracts are increasingly turning to the bid protest process for a second chance to compete for, and hopefully win, new contracts, and preserve their incumbent contracts.

GAO-GovernmentAccountabilityOffice-SealThe statistics bear this out. Bid protest activity at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has steadily increased year-over-year, with a record 2,561 protests filed in fiscal year 2014 alone. But more filings has not meant more sustained protests; the GAO sustain rate in 2014 fell to its lowest recent level of only 13 percent (though this does not account for voluntary agency corrective actions, which have remained steady).

These statistics, and the new federal procurement reality, reinforce the need for contractors to think carefully about effective protest strategies and emerging issues to maximize their chances to successfully protest procurements (or defend contract awards).

See ten key trends and tips to keep in mind: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=421438

Filed Under: Contracting Tips Tagged With: award protest, bid protest, CICA, contract protests, disparate treatment, evaluation criteria, GAO, LPTA, protest

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