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ARTICLE · 13 FEBRUARY 2017

January 2017 Protest Roundup

Morrison Foerster
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Two common themes run through the cases we have chosen for this month's bid protest roundup.

United StatesGovernment, Public Sector
James Tucker
James Tucker
Lauren Horneffer
Lauren Horneffer
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Two common themes run through the cases we have chosen for this month's bid protest roundup.  The first three decisions explore some pitfalls relating to the timeliness of proposals and protest grounds.  The last two highlight the fact that the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) well-known deference to agency discretion does not extend to matters where an agency cannot (or will not) document any reasonable basis for a challenged action.  We have summarized the most interesting points of these protests below.

Sumaria Systems, Inc., B-413508.2, Dec. 29, 2016

Protesters ordinarily have until the date set for proposal submission to file a pre-award protest.  That rule is not ironclad, however.  A few pre-award errors must be raised within ten days of when the protest ground was known or should have been known.  In addition, as the protester learned in Sumaria, when a GAO protest is preceded by an agency-level protest, the GAO protest must be filed within ten

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