Government Contracts Blog : Government Contracts Lawyer & Attorney : Sheppard Mullin Law Firm : Bids, Licenses, Awards, Conflict of Interest.

The Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) denies more than three quarters of all bid protests decided on the merits. Certain categories of protests, however, tend to be more successful than others. 

Three of our Government Contracts lawyers – Keith Szeliga, Marko Kipa, and Daniel Marcinak – recently published an article that assists protestors in identifying such allegations. Among other things, the article analyzes the most common categories of successful bid protest grounds and describes the circumstances under which each ground is likely to prevail. With permission of Briefing Papers, the article is reproduced in full in this issue of our blog. 

Click here to view a PDF copy of the article.

Authored by:

Keith R. Szeliga

(202) 218-0003

kszeliga@sheppardmullin.com

and

Marko W. Kipa

(202) 772-5302

mkipa@sheppardmullin.com

and

Daniel J. Marcinak

202) 772-5391

dmarcinak@sheppardmullin.com

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On September 17, 2008, the Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council issued interim rules providing for enhanced competition for task and delivery order contracts.  The interim rules essentially mirrored Section 843 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 (the Act), which went into effect on May 27, 2008, and revised three provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR 16.503 – 16.505) to incorporate the Act’s enhanced competition requirements.  See 73 Fed. Reg. 54008 (Sept. 17, 2008).  As was discussed in an earlier blog article with respect to the interim rules when they were initially proposed, the rules targeted three primary areas:

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Determining whether to challenge the award of a contract to a competitor can be a daunting decision for a federal government contractor.  This article seeks to make that decision more manageable by providing an overview of the bid protest process and by suggesting several factors a contractor should consider in determining whether to protest an award.[i]

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With the enactment of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) in 1994, Multiple Award task and delivery order contracts were given a significant boost.  As part of that legislation came an almost ironclad bar to bid protests against the award of individual task or delivery orders.  Disappointed offerors were prohibited from protesting the award of task or delivery orders except if such orders increased the scope, period, or maximum value of the underlying contract.  Several exceptions subsequently were carved-out from the general prohibition, including protests of “down-selections” as well as task and delivery orders awarded under the GSA FSS program.  Otherwise, however, disappointed offerors could either air their grievances with the agency ombudsman (an individual who possesses no binding authority) or could take the road seldom traveled and file a CDA claim with the contracting officer alleging a breach of the "fair opportunity to compete" required by FASA, implementing regulations, and contract clauses.  Only recently was there any indication that damages could be awarded under the latter approach and, as expected, the standard for recovery is a difficult one for any contractor to meet.  The circumscribed recourse available to disappointed task or delivery order offerors did not occur by happenstance – it was the result of deliberate efforts by reformers to streamline the acquisition process and to avoid the delays and increased costs they attributed to the numerous, routine and purportedly needless protests encumbering the procurement system.
 

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It is well-recognized that, with limited exceptions, neither the GAO nor the Court of Federal Claims has been willing, historically, to assume jurisdiction over IDIQ task or delivery order protests.  Recently, there has been some loosening of that bar, in the form of Public Law No. 110-181, § 843, which grants the GAO exclusive jurisdiction for a period of three years over protests against task or delivery order awards valued at more than $10 million.  Even with that legislative development, however, there are many task orders and/or delivery orders that will jurisdictionally escape review via the protest process.

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On April 23, 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3033, "Contractors and Federal Spending Accountability Act," agreeing by voice vote that GSA would maintain a centralized database of government contractors.  The GSA database would collect information on contract defaults, suspensions, and debarments, as well as "any civil or criminal proceeding, or any administrative proceeding" for which a contractor paid at least $5,000 in restitution, that has been "concluded" by the federal or state governments.  If a contractor committed in a three-year period more than one offense for which it could be debarred, the contracting officer must affirmatively demonstrate the contractor's responsibility prior to award.

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Disappointed bidders intent on protesting an allegedly improper contract award could pursue traditionally two avenues of potential relief.  They could file a post-award bid protest either:  (1) at the Government Accountability Office ("GAO") within 10 days of when they learned of the protest grounds (or, where competitive proposals were involved, within 10 days of the requested and required debriefing), or (2) at the United States Court of Federal Claims ("Court of Federal Claims" or "COFC"), constrained primarily by the Court’s 6-year statute of limitations.  While disappointed bidders may retain ultimately the discretion to choose the forum of their choice, protests at the Court of Federal Claims outside of the 10-day period after contract award (or after a requested and required debriefing) are in danger of becoming an artifact of the past.  This potential change to the post-award bid protest jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims is one that every contractor should be watching closely.

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