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Competitive Range Of One Gets Close Scrutiny

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 09.25.08

Reviewing the law that an agency's narrowing the competitive range to one results in close scrutiny, the CFC in L-3 Communications Eotech, Inc. v. U.S. (Sept. 23, 2008, http://www.crowell.com/pdf/L3-Communications_v_US-AimPoint_08-515.pdf) proceeded to set aside such a determination when the agency disqualified the protestor based on a failed functional test that it relaxed for the favored offeror. The court, after seeing a live demonstration of the hardware involved, also found irrational the agency's failure to seek clarifications when the protestor's perceived testing problem could have been corrected relatively easily.

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].”...