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Congress Considers Tweaking IT Spending

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 10.17.16

On October 5, the Senate Finance Committee sent a letter to commercial information technology providers requesting information about “whether federal agencies, to the fullest extent possible, incorporate preexisting, commercial and non-developmental IT solutions into their modernization efforts and if not, the barriers to their doing so.” Noting that the federal government spent about $80 billion on IT in FY 2015, the committee requested “recommendations” sent to ITContracting@finance.senate.gov by November 2, 2016, for how competition for IT contracts could be broadened by increased use of commercial contracting procedures and fixed-price contracts or changes to evaluation criteria and source selection factors.

Insights

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....