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Misleading Discussions Can Be With Awardee

Client Alert | 1 min read | 10.19.06

In Advanced Systems Development, Inc. (Sept. 19, 2006, http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/298411.pdf), the GAO held that the agency improperly tipped the tables when it incorrectly advised the future awardee in discussions that one portion of its price violated the solicitation's price target and never disclosed that the excess was caused at least in part by an upward adjustment the agency had made to compensate for an error in another part of the awardee's pricing proposal. In response to this incorrect and incomplete information provided during discussions, the offeror lowered its final price below that of the competition, including the protestor, who prevailed on the theory that the agency's discussions with the awardee were not meaningful.

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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].”...