Lack of Documented Award Defeats Discussions with Putative Awardee

In SRA Int’l, Inc. (released last week), although the solicitation allowed the government to negotiate a final reduced price with the prospective awardee after it had been selected for award, GSA conducted discussions with the eventual awardee before documenting any best value determination and before the evaluations were even finalized. Because GSA did not conduct discussions with any other offerors, GAO held that the discussions were unequal and recommended that GSA go back, establish a competitive range, and open discussions with all remaining offerors.