1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |Solicitation Must Adequately Evaluate Contract Type and Not Have Arbitrary Disqualifications

Solicitation Must Adequately Evaluate Contract Type and Not Have Arbitrary Disqualifications

Client Alert | 1 min read | 09.09.16

In CACI, Inc.-Federal (Aug. 3, 2016), GAO sustained two pre-award challenges to the cost/price evaluation scheme in DISA’s $17.5B ENCORE III IDIQ solicitation. GAO held, first, that the solicitation did not provide an adequate basis to compare the relative cost of competing proposals because, despite anticipating roughly half of the ENCORE III task orders to be cost-reimbursable, the RFP did not require offerors to propose any cost-reimbursable labor rates and, second, that a provision that would eliminate any offeror with a total price more than 50 percent below a “trimmed average total proposed price” of other offerors was “entirely arbitrary in selection and application” because the record did not reflect that such a price difference would pose any inherently high performance risk.

Contacts

Insights

Client Alert | 4 min read | 06.25.26

Twin Executive Orders Seek to Spur Quantum Leap in Technology and Cybersecurity

On June 22, 2026, President Trump signed two executive orders, “Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks” (Quantum Security EO) and “Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation” (Quantum Innovation EO), marking the most significant federal action on quantum technology since the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act of 2022, which directed agencies to harden their information systems against quantum-enabled hacking. The orders seek to speed the development of quantum computers, which are advanced processors that can calculate multiple possibilities simultaneously and thus solve problems exponentially faster than traditional computers. At the same time, the orders look to protect against the danger that quantum technology can “break” traditional encryption by easily decoding it. Of particular note for government contractors, the Quantum Security EO directs agencies to update federal acquisition regulations to require contractors by 2031 to adopt information processing standards that resist quantum-enabled codebreaking....

View All Insights