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Conflict of Interest by Government Official

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 11.23.15

In Satellite Tracking of People, LLC (Nov. 6, 2015), GAO sustained what it called a first-of-kind protest concerning a government program manager who had been recently employed by one of the competitors in the procurement. Because the CO had stated in writing prior to proposal submission that the program manager should recuse herself, yet never followed through to enforce the recusal, GAO concluded that a known conflict of interest concern had been left unresolved and, therefore, prejudice to the protester arising from this conflict must be presumed.


Insights

Client Alert | 4 min read | 10.30.26

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right: GAO Sustains Protest Where Agency Tried to Fix PIA Violation with a Second PIA Violation

Recent sustain decisions by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Fluor Federal Solutions, LLC and Reliance Test & Technology send a clear message: when an agency tries to fix a Procurement Integrity Act (PIA) violation by committing a second one, the cure can be just as fatal as the disease. The cases involved the U.S. Air Force’s $1.8 billion procurement for O&M services at Elgin Air Force Base. During discussions, the Air Force inadvertently released a pricing overview slide with all offerors’ bottom-line evaluated costs to Reliance Test & Technology, which immediately notified the agency of the error. In response, the Air Force decided to level the playing field by providing the same information to all the other offerors in the procurement, stating, “[o]fferors may consider this disclosure in their [final proposal revision].”...