No Preferential T&C's Mods Allowed for Commercial Item Buys
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 06.20.11
In Diebold, Inc. (June 2, 2011), GAO sustained a protest when the Comptroller of the Currency had substituted new terms and conditions beneficial to the awardee into a commercial items contract that were not part of the underlying solicitation. While GAO agreed that FAR § 12.302(a) gives an agency discretion to tailor the terms of FAR Clause 52.212-4 to the market practices and conditions for a particular commercial item acquisition, it instructed that all offerors must compete on a common basis against the agency's true needs and so "tailoring" of the terms must occur prior to the submission of final proposals.
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Client Alert | 2 min read | 04.16.26
In a significant decision for government contractors, on April 15, 2026, in Life Science Logistics, LLC v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that bid protesters challenging an agency’s override of an automatic stay of contract performance under the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) need not satisfy the demanding four-factor test traditionally required for preliminary injunctive relief. In so doing, the Federal Circuit clarified that CICA stay override challenges need only demonstrate that the override decision was arbitrary and capricious—nothing more.
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