State Slammed For Adopting GAO Recommendation
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 08.22.07
In Grunley Walsh Int'l v. U.S. (Fed. Cl. Aug. 3, 2007), in which Crowell & Moring represented the successful plaintiff, the Court of Federal Claims held that the Department of State acted arbitrarily when it adopted a GAO recommendation to reverse its own, longstanding interpretation of the total business volume requirement in the Diplomatic Construction Program statute (22 U.S.C. § 4852). The government argued that the court must defer to State's revised interpretation, but the Court refused to do so, because that would "effectively strip this court of any real review in any case where the agency followed a recommendation of the GAO on an interpretation of a statute or regulation."
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Client Alert | 2 min read | 12.19.25
GAO Cautions Agencies—Over-Redact at Your Own Peril
Bid protest practitioners in recent years have witnessed agencies’ increasing efforts to limit the production of documents and information in response to Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protests—often will little pushback from GAO. This practice has underscored the notable difference in the scope of bid protest records before GAO versus the Court of Federal Claims. However, in Tiger Natural Gas, Inc., B-423744, Dec. 10, 2025, 2025 CPD ¶ __, GAO made clear that there are limits to the scope of redactions, and GAO will sustain a protest where there is insufficient evidence that the agency’s actions were reasonable.
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2025 GAO Bid Protest Annual Report: Where Have All the Protests Gone?
