This month's bid protest round-up takes a closer look at an
agency's discretion to take corrective action, as well as
potential pitfalls with joint ventures and subsidiaries, and
clarification on protest timing with the DoD debriefing rules.
Dell Federal Systems, L.P., et al. United
States, No. 2017-2516 et al. (Fed. Cir. Oct. 5,
2018).
In a rare Federal Circuit decision, the court reversed a Court
of Federal Claims (COFC) decision and held that agencies are not
required to "narrowly tailor" corrective action. Instead,
agencies only need to meet a rational basis threshold for their
corrective actions.
The Department of the Army (the Army) solicited proposals in May
2016 for indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contracts
for commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) computer hardware such as
desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and printers. The total
estimated contract value was $5 billion over a ten-year period. The
Army received 58 proposals, 52 of which were
