GAO Sustains TRICARE Protest On Multiple Grounds
Client Alert | 1 min read | 11.18.09
In Health Net Fed Servs., Inc. (Nov. 4, 2009), GAO sustained the protest of Health Net (represented by C&M) against a $16 billion TRICARE award because (1) the agency's past performance evaluation unreasonably gave the awardee significant credit for contracts much smaller than the contract to be awarded and improperly attributed to the awardee the past performance of the awardee's parent and its affiliates; (2) the agency's price realism evaluation failed to consider whether the awardee's staffing reflected a lack of understanding of the technical requirements; (3) the agency overlooked the risk associated with the awardee's proposed plan to hire large percentages of the incumbent workforce; and (4) the agency did not consider, as part of the technical evaluation, the cost savings associated with the protester's proposed approach. In addition to the fatal evaluation errors, GAO also determined that the awardee's use of a former high-level government employee in preparing its proposal created an appearance of impropriety based on the unfair competitive advantage stemming from the individual's earlier access to non-public, proprietary, and source-selection-sensitive information.
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On August 15, 2025, the Treasury Department and IRS released updated guidance concerning Beginning of Construction requirements to qualify for clean energy tax credits. This new guidance is critical for developers to consider as they rush to qualify for the tax credits before they expire entirely. The much-anticipated guidance followed the July 7, 2025 Executive Order 14315, Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources (“July 7, 2025 Executive Order”), which signaled that the Trump Administration was planning to strictly enforce the termination of production and investment tax credits for solar and wind facilities that are set to expire under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB Act), covered in more detail here. The new guidance comes at a time when many in the industry are struggling to keep up with the myriad ways that the new administration is working to roll back wind and solar tax credits, leaving developers to piece through the recent guidance to determine how best to structure and invest in clean energy projects given the volatile position of the current administration vis-a-vis wind and solar energy.
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Building Blocks of Design Law: CJEU rules on LEGO Group Modular Design Protection
