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Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Protest: Intervenor’s Silence Waives Future Protest Grounds

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 05.05.21

When is the deadline to file a bid protest, and what actions or inactions can cause potential future protest arguments to be waived?  These seemingly simple questions can have surprising answers.  In a recent bid protest decision, GAO held that a contract awardee can waive potential protest grounds by failing to raise them when intervening in a competitor’s bid protest of its award.  See VS2, LLC, B-418942.4, B-418942.5, Feb. 25, 2021, 2021 CPD ¶ --, 2021 WL 873343.  C&M’s Eric Ransom and Rob Sneckenberg explain the VS2 decision and provide useful takeaways for contract awardees in this “Feature Comment” published in The Government Contractor.

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Client Alert | 4 min read | 07.22.26

FCPA and National Security Objectives Align: DOJ Announces First Settlement Related to Bribes That Benefited Mexican Cartels

On July 17, 2026, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with The Scoular Company (Scoular), an agricultural supply chain company based in Omaha, Nebraska, to resolve allegations that Scoular relied on customs brokers to bribe Mexican government officials to allow Scoular goods to pass customs inspections and be delivered to Mexico from the United States. As part of its resolution, Scoular agreed to pay a $9,769,521 criminal penalty and forfeit an additional $414,351. Scoular also committed to continue cooperating with DOJ on any ongoing or future criminal investigations, implement a compliance and ethics program designed to prevent and detect violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and periodically report to DOJ on remediation and implementation of compliance measures throughout the term of the DPA....