1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |COFC Reverses Another Cica Stay Override

COFC Reverses Another Cica Stay Override

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 05.10.04

Although the protester’s incumbent contract (and the 6-month extension) had expired, in Keeton Corrections, Inc. v. U.S., (March 17, 2004), the Court of Federal Claims rejected as arbitrary and capricious an override decision that was premised on the purported necessity of using the awarded contract to deliver necessary correctional services to the Bureau of Prisons. The court found that the agency had not explained why sole source purchase orders could not be used to obtain the necessary services pending GAO’s protest decision, and held that such sole source orders (issued either to the protester or the awardee) would be permissible under the circumstances, and would be less harmful to competition than an override of the CICA stay.

Insights

Client Alert | 4 min read | 10.30.26

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right: GAO Sustains Protest Where Agency Tried to Fix PIA Violation with a Second PIA Violation

Recent sustain decisions by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Fluor Federal Solutions, LLC and Reliance Test & Technology send a clear message: when an agency tries to fix a Procurement Integrity Act (PIA) violation by committing a second one, the cure can be just as fatal as the disease. The cases involved the U.S. Air Force’s $1.8 billion procurement for O&M services at Elgin Air Force Base. During discussions, the Air Force inadvertently released a pricing overview slide with all offerors’ bottom-line evaluated costs to Reliance Test & Technology, which immediately notified the agency of the error. In response, the Air Force decided to level the playing field by providing the same information to all the other offerors in the procurement, stating, “[o]fferors may consider this disclosure in their [final proposal revision].”...