Past Performance Remains Fertile Ground For Protest Challenges
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 11.18.05
In J.A. Farrington Janitorial Servs. (Oct. 18, 2005, http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/296875.pdf), GAO found unreasonable the agency's assignment of a "high confidence" rating to the awardee of a grounds maintenance contract where the awardee's past performance references all related to efforts of far smaller magnitude and for only commercial customers. GAO also found that the agency's determination that the price offered by the protester, a HUBZone small business, was unrealistic amounted to a responsibility determination, and therefore had to be submitted to the Small Business Administration for a possible certificate of competency.
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Client Alert | 5 min read | 09.03.26
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) published a final rule amending 14 CFR Part 234 that fundamentally changes how airlines report the causes of flight delays and cancellations. Effective October 19, 2026, the rule implements Section 511(b) of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 by creating a new reporting category, the “Section 511(b) category,” for ten specific events that Congress determined are not attributable to airline control. The rule simultaneously narrows the existing "Air Carrier" reporting category by expressly excluding those same ten events.
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