Protests against T4NG2 awards hit a growth spurt

Gettyimages.com/JannHuizenga

Find opportunities — and win them.

More companies have joined the group of those complaining about how the Veterans Affairs Department evaluated proposals for the $60 billion IT vehicle.

When we last checked on the T4NG2 protest situation in April, 16 companies had filed lawsuits at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

That number has now doubled to 32. Some of the biggest names in the market are among the protesters, including Leidos and General Dynamics IT.

Back in October, VA made awards to the top 30 scores that it could verify and with what the department saw as the best pricing. VA also set aside at least half of those awards for small businesses.

After the original awards, VA determined Sierra7 was not a small business and kicked the company off the $60 billion IT contract vehicle.

VA replaced Sierra7 with CGI Federal, which of course is not a small business but its score was next in-line. The department still made its small business goals because it originally made awards to more than 15 SBs.

Most of the objections to VA's Transformation Twenty-one Total Technology Next Generation 2 vehicle focus on the department's use of a self-scoring methodology to evaluate proposals.

The protesters are complaining that VA’s verification process was flawed and was not transparent.

In addition to the protesters, the case has also attracted a large number of what are called “intervenor defendants.” That group involves companies who have won spots on T4NG2, so they have a financial interest in the outcome of the protests.

Booz Allen Hamilton, ManTech International, CGI Federal and Science Applications International Corp. are among the intervenors.

The protesters called out the intervenors by name in their filings, claiming that VA didn’t properly validate their scores and pricing.

360 Innovative Solutions is the newest protester to join the fray, having filed its complaint on Friday.

The judge hearing the case set a schedule in April for motions and other filings, but those have since been suspended. A new schedule has not been set.

Here is the full list of companies that are protesting the awards:

  • 360 Innovative Solutions
  • Arrow Arc
  • Clearview Technologies
  • CSE Vets
  • Decisionpoint-Agile joint venture
  • Freedom Technology Partners
  • General Dynamics IT
  • Government Healthcare Solutions
  • Innovenue
  • Insignia Technology Services
  • Intellect JV
  • Intevets
  • Kahu, a Leidos and Pueo Business Solutions JV
  • King Street Technology Partners
  • Leidos
  • Mission Training
  • Nine Line Medical
  • Omni Cares
  • Peregrine Digital Services
  • Pinnacle Computer Technology
  • Systematic Innovations
  • T4NG2 JV
  • Taurian Consulting
  • Technatomy Corp.
  • Thunderyard Liberty JV
  • Tista Science and Technology
  • Tribility
  • VA Technology Innovation
  • Vector Innovative Solutions
  • Veteran First Technologies
  • Vision Tech Group