ARTICLE · 09 NOVEMBER 2022

GAO: Bid Protest Activity Fell Again, But Protester "Effectiveness Rate" Increased

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The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its annual Bid Protest Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2022 on Nov. 1, 2022.

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Gregory Hallmark

Robert Tompkins

Christian B. Nagel

Jeremy D. Burkhart

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The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its annualBid Protest Reportto Congress for Fiscal Year 2022 on Nov. 1, 2022. The annual report is a requirement of the Competition in Contracting Act and an opportunity for GAO to provide data concerning its overall protest filings for the fiscal year. The following are some of our takeaways from this year's report.

Protesters Obtained Some Form of Relief inMore Than Halfof Cases.The proportion of final decisions by GAO to sustain protests has remained steady at between 13 percent and 15 percent over the past five years. But GAO stated that the "effectiveness rate" of protests in FY 2022 was 51 percent. This is the percentage of cases in which the protester obtained some sort of relief - either GAO issued a decision sustaining the protest or the agency voluntarily took corrective action in response to the protest. In the past three years, the effectiveness rate has been between 48 percent and 51 percent,

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