Bid Protests

Bid Protests are Important to All Size Contractors

Bid Protests are an important aspect of Government Contracting. Either as an unsuccessful bidder protesting an award or as an awardee who’s protecting their award, understanding the protests process is critical.

Due to the recent economic changes Bid protests have become a much more important to Government contractors. Filings of protests have increased sharply over the past two years. More protests have been filed in the past two years than have been filled from 1998 to 2008 combined. Over the past two years contractors are becoming more and more successful with bid protests. Over the past four years we have seen our success rate climb to over 60%. The national average is just below 30%.

One of the main factors for our success rate is that we will only protest valid issues and we attempt to lay out the risks of protests to our clients prior to filing. We also aggressively pursue other potential outcomes and alternative dispute resolution to resolving protests that benefit both our clients and the agency.

The Decision to file a Bid Protest

If you are considering filing a bid protest, the first thing you should do is contact counsel as soon as possible to ensure that your critical deadlines have not passed. There are many time sensitive statutory and legal triggers that protestors must know.

Our clients who have filed a protest and won have received the benefit of the awarded contract for up to a five year period. Many contractors are realizing the benefits of being awarded a contract that last up to five years out weights the financial risk of the protest.

Some clients are apprehensive of filing a protests thinking that if they file a protest the agency will no longer award them contracts this is simply not so. Some of our successful clients file protest after protest and their Government sales have increased every year. But please keep in mind that an intense review of each situation must be made on a case by case basis. Of all the clients that come to us wishing to file a protest we end up talking more than half of our clients out of it for various reasons.

Bid Protest Can be Filed

Bid Protests can be filed either at the agency (agency level Protest), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which if filed timely allows an automatic stay of the awarded contract, or Untied States Court of Federal Claims. (USCFC) Deciding on where to file a protest must be determined on case by case bases.

The majority of bid protests that are filed with the GAO, because if filed within 10 days of award of the contract an automatic stay will be placed on the awardee.

I just received a contract award that has been protested, what should I do?

It is critical that if you’re awarded contract is protested by another company that you become an intervernor in the action.
This means your company becomes a party to the action and your company will be given notice of all the filings between the parties and be able to be a part of any settlement discussions between the protester and agency if they take place.

Malyszek & Malyszek has successfully handled all type of bid protests no matter the size of your company.

If you are thinking about filing a protest we will review your case and be glad to give you advice on the potential outcome given your particular protest situation. We are more than willing to discuss your particular protest situation, but please give us a call as soon as possible.

Some of Our Recent Success…

Malyszek & Malyszek filed a bid protest on a manufacturing contract based on the awardee having negative past performance that was not considered during the best value determination, our client was awarded a $60 million dollar contract.

In a weapons contract valued at $95 million dollars our client protested on the grounds that the agency did not do a proper evaluation as based on the solicitation, within 10 days of us filing the protest, we forced the agency into taking a corrective action that split the contract, thus awarding a $47.5 million dollar contract to both the original awardee and our client.

We successfully defended a bid protest that was filed against our small business client that was awarded a 2.5 million dollar contract. The protester filed a size standard protest against our client.