Each year around this time, the U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO) publishes its annual report to Congress on bid
protests. Earlier this week, the GAO published the report for Fiscal
Year (FY) 2022. The following are the updated statistics at a
glance, in the context of the four preceding government fiscal
years:
What the Numbers Really Mean
Before discussing trends, it's worth observing that the
reported numbers don't mean
what you probably think they mean. As the GAO emphasizes each year,
the "case" tallies above reflect discrete
"B-numbers" on the GAO's
docket, not the total
procurements challenged or the total protests filed:
All entries in this chart are counted in terms of the docket
numbers (‟B" numbers) assigned by our Office, not the
number of procurements challenged. Where a protester files a
supplemental protest or multiple parties protest the same
procurement action, multiple iterations of the same "B"
number are assigned (i.e., .2,
