Chance to Change Pricing Generally Required After Corrective Action

The GAO in Power Connector, Inc. (Aug. 15, 2011), reiterated that, when an agency changes a solicitation evaluation criteria in a material way as part of corrective action, it must allow offerors in the next round of proposals to alter their price – even when the change has no obvious relationship to pricing – because the offeror may have submitted a more competitive price had it known that its proposal would be less competitive in another evaluation area.  In response to agency concerns about the protestor having an unfair advantage in the recompetition as a result of learning of other offerors’ pricing during its debriefing, GAO instructed that the proper remedy was to level the playing field by disclosing all prices to all offerors, rather than to forbid price changes.

For further analysis, click here for related blog post by James Peyster.