Bid protests return to a long-term decline

The downward trend of bid protest filings restarted in the government's 2024 fiscal year after a 22% increase in 2023 because of the large volume of challenges surrounding the CIO-SP4 contract vehicle.

For fiscal 2024, the Government Accountability Office saw 1,803 cases filed versus the 2,025 in fiscal 2023, according to its annual report to Congress.

The 2024 number is higher than the 1,658 filed in 2022, but is lower than 2021 (1,897) and 2,149 filed in fiscal 2020. Fiscal 2019 with 2,198 cases filed was down from fiscal 2018.

Here is our analysis of GAO's fiscal 2023 report to Congress.

Despite the prevailing wisdom that everything gets protested, the number of protests has significantly dropped over the last six years.

GAO sustained 61 protests in fiscal 2024, meaning it sided with the protester. GAO denied another 326 protests.

Of the 1,706 cases closed during fiscal 2024, GAO said it had an effectiveness rate of 52%. These are cases where the protester received some sort of relief, either by a sustained protest or an agency taking a corrective action to address concerns raised by the protester.

The 2024 effectiveness rate was lower than the 57% rate in fiscal 2023. The rate hovered around 50% in 2022, 2021 and 2020. Which says 2024 is a return to normal.

The report also identifies three of the most common reasons for GAO sustaining protests:

• Unreasonable technical evaluation
• Flawed selection decision
• Unreasonable cost or price evaluation

When GAO sustains a protest, it always includes actions it wants agencies to take. These are recommendations, which agencies almost always follow. But when they don’t, GAO reports that to Congress.

In the 2024 report, GAO discloses that the State Department did not follow GAO’s recommendations in a protest won by the Pernix Federal LLC joint venture. The case involved a contract to build a new consulate compound in Adana, Turkey.

Pernix Federal lost the contract because they were not registered in Sam.gov, but JVs cannot register there. GAO said there was a conflict between State’s Security Act regulations and State’s interpretation of Sam.gov registration requirements.

GAO told State to let Pernix back into the competition. GAO also recommended Congress pass legislation directing State to reconcile its regulations with Sam.gov registration requirements.

State told GAO they disagreed and would not follow the recommendations.

This is all probably a moot point because Pernix also went to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, where the JV lost.

The court effectively said the State Department could continue with the contract as is. Pernix’s appeal of the court decision is pending.