During Bid Protest Stay Agency Should Have Terminated Award To Large Business Following SBA Size Decision
Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.29.06
Departing from precedent and a FAR provision seemingly on point, the GAO, in ALATEC Inc. (Dec. 4, 2006, http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/298730.pdf), held that even though the Army's award of a small business set aside contract occurred more than 10 days after a timely small business size protest was referred to the SBA, an award action permitted by FAR 10.302(h)(1), the Army should have terminated that contract following the SBA 's determination that the awardee was in fact a large business. Because performance of the contact had been stayed due to a GAO protest, and because the SBA's Office of Hearings and Appeals sustained the size protest, GAO could not identify any "plausible countervailing circumstances" that weighed in favor of permitting a large business to perform the contract.
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Client Alert | 4 min read | 08.07.25
On July 25, 2025, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision in United States ex. rel. Sedona Partners LLC v. Able Moving & Storage Inc. et al., holding that a district court cannot ignore new factual allegations included in an amended complaint filed by a False Claims Act qui tam relator based on the fact that those additional facts were learned in discovery, even while a motion to dismiss for failure to comply with the heightened pleading standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) is pending. Under Rule 9(b), allegations of fraud typically must include factual support showing the who, what, where, why, and how of the fraud to survive a defendant’s motion to dismiss. And while that standard has not changed, Sedona gives room for a relator to file first and seek out discovery in order to amend an otherwise deficient complaint and survive a motion to dismiss, at least in the Eleventh Circuit. Importantly, however, the Eleventh Circuit clarified that a district court retains the discretion to dismiss a relator’s complaint before or after discovery has begun, meaning that district courts are not required to permit discovery at the pleading stage. Nevertheless, the Sedona decision is an about-face from precedent in the Eleventh Circuit, and many other circuits, where, historically, facts learned during discovery could not be used to circumvent Rule 9(b) by bolstering a relator’s factual allegations while a motion to dismiss was pending. While the long-term effects of the decision remain to be seen, in the short term the decision may encourage relators to engage in early discovery in hopes of learning facts that they can use to survive otherwise meritorious motions to dismiss.
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