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Inadequate Justification for Restrictive Requirements Leads to Injunction

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 01.10.11

After having been thrown out of GAO for purportedly not being an interested party to challenge Interior’s restriction of its procurement of a department-wide messaging and cloud computing system to Microsoft resellers on the GSA schedule, Google found a more sympathetic ear, and standing to complain, in the CFC. In Google, Inc. v. U.S. (Jan. 4, 2011), the court found that Interior had failed to take several of the procedural steps required by CICA and the FAR to justify the restrictive specification of Microsoft products, enjoined the procurement, and remanded the matter to the agency for it to follow the correct steps of the process.

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Client Alert | 3 min read | 07.23.26

Protester Beware: Recent GAO Decision Suggests Traditional “Reasonable Possibility” Prejudice Standard May Be Evolving

It is well established that “[c]ompetitive prejudice is an essential element of every viable protest.” Yet, for decades, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has tempered this requirement with two critical corollaries: protesters need only demonstrate a “reasonable possibility” that they were prejudiced by an agency’s actions, and GAO “will resolve doubts regarding prejudice in favor of the protester.” These principles have been consistent features of GAO’s bid protest jurisprudence for more than 30 years. See, e.g., United Int’l Eng'g, Inc., B-245448, Jan. 29, 1992, 71 CPD ¶ 177....