Judge delays FirstSource III proceedings amid growing case load

With the number of companies joining the FirstSource III protest growing at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the judge has hit the pause button on deadlines he set earlier in the case.

Right now, there are 11 protests at the court with another 14 active at the Government Accountability Office. FirstSource III is a $10 billion the Homeland Security Department uses to buy hardware, software and related services from small businesses.

DHS began making awards in September but they were quickly followed by protests at GAO and then the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Generally, when protests are filed at court, GAO will dismiss the protests it has because the court has higher jurisdiction. But the dismissals are not automatic. GAO checks each protest to make sure that the cases before the court will address the issues raised in the GAO protests.

Most of the challenges have focused on how DHS evaluated proposals.

Some protesters have voluntarily withdrawn their GAO protests, either to join the court cases or to sit on the sideline and wait for the court’s ruling.

Judge Edward Meyers had set some deadlines in the cases before him but because of the number of protests and the potential for more to move from GAO to the court, he has cancelled or vacated those orders.

He has scheduled a conference with attorneys for either Oct. 29 or Oct. 30, depending on availability.

In his new order, he said that there are two choices – condense the schedule or extend it.

Condensing the schedule may be untenable. “It is not realistic for the parties to expect that the court can issue decisions in 30 protests in five weeks when the parties will spend three months briefing those same protests,” he wrote in his Oct. 15 order.