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Lack of Documented Award Defeats Discussions with Putative Awardee

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 03.02.16

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.

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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].”...