Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

If you’re not early, you’re late: Meeting deadlines in federal procurements

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Businesses hoping to win a government contract must be familiar and comply with a host of complex timeliness rules, from the deadlines for submitting proposals and revisions, to the rules for protesting a potentially improper award to a competitor.

One small slip-up may be the difference between receiving a contract and not receiving it.

Untimeliness is a theme that frequently appears in the Government Accountability Office (GAO) protests we highlight on this blog: late proposals, tardy requests for a debriefing, untimely protests.

Some deadlines are obvious: If the solicitation says proposals are due at 5:00 p.m., don’t submit your proposal at 5:30 p.m. Others are less intuitive: When is the last possible moment you can request a required debriefing?  A few are positively convoluted.

We provide a few practical tips on timeliness below, illustrated with some cautionary protest decisions. As always, if you are not absolutely sure about any deadline, ask your procurement attorney.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=742438

It’s 4:30 pm — Do you know where your debrief request is?

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For those of you who have ever protested a solicitation before the Government Accountability Office (GAO), you know about GAO’s strict rules regarding timeliness.

Under GAO rules, a document is considered filed on a particular day if it is received in GAO’s new electronic filing system by 5:30 p.m. ET.  This rule is strictly enforced, as shown by the recent dismissal of a protest in CWIS, Inc., B-416544.  In that case, GAO dismissed a protest filed by 5:46 p.m, as untimely, even though the late filing resulted from an issue with GAO’s new electronic filing system.

What you may not know, however, is that similar strict timeliness rules also apply to requesting a required debriefing.

In the recent Exceptional Software Strategies, Inc. decision, GAO held that close of business for government agencies was 4:30 p.m., based on the time set forth in FAR 33.101, which governs agency protests.  GAO accordingly ruled that a debriefing request received after 4:30 p.m. was untimely. Because GAO found that the debriefing request was untimely, the protest itself was untimely.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.hklaw.com/GovConBlog/Its-430-pm-Do-You-Know-Where-Your-Debrief-Request-Is-07-27-2018/

GAO rejects timeliness challenge because ‘essential elements’ of protest were timely filed

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Protest TimelinessIn REB ROWE Services, LLC; General Services Administration–Reconsideration, B-410001.6; B-410001.7 (Apr. 4, 2016), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently denied a request for reconsideration and clarified that protest grounds are interpreted broadly for timeliness purposes.

This decision is a reminder for protestors and intervenors alike that seemingly untimely protest grounds may still be revived if they involve “the same essential elements” as timely filed protest allegations.

In the underlying procurement, the agency’s evaluation had determined the protestor’s price was unrealistic and assessed performance risk based upon the unrealistically low price.  The initial protest was timely filed, and the protestor filed comments on the agency report 11 days after the agency report was filed.  The protestor did not specifically invoke price realism until it filed its comments.

GAO sustained the protest based on the agency’s unreasonable price realism analysis, holding that the agency failed to evaluate the protestor’s unique staffing approach during the price realism analysis; “instead [the agency] simply compared [the protestor’s] price to the government estimate and other offerors’ prices.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2016/05/gao-rejects-timeliness-challenge-because-essential-elements-of-protest-were-timely-filed/

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