CIO-SP4 court challenges swell to 26 companies
Gettyimages.com/ Tetra Images
By
Nick Wakeman
The protesters are continuing to challenge the evaluation process and past-performance scoring for this $50 billion IT contract.
After moving through the court for several months, the number of small businesses unhappy about the $50 billion CIO-SP4 contract's evaluation process leapt up in November with 13 more companies joining the lawsuit.
Two companies have also withdrawn from the case, bringing the total number of protesters to 26 firms.
This group is raising issues with how the National Institutes of Health's IT acquisition arm has managed the IT vehicle's small business portion.
CIO-SP4 will enter its third year of protests at the start of 2025. The saga started 2022 at the Government Accountability Office and exploded in 2023, causing a spike in the number of cases GAO handled that year.
Many of the protests involve how NITAAC has used a self-scoring mechanism for bidders to document their past performance and experience. Several companies argued that the threshold they had to clear is arbitrary.
GAO ruled against NITAAC and told the agency to certify all the scores. After that, the complaints moved to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in February 2024. Many of the filings are still sealed.
We do know that NITAAC has agreed to not make any awards until at least the end of February 2025, in hopes that court process can wrap up. NITAAC has continued to evaluate proposals.
The court wants NITAAC to more fully document its decisions.
NITAAC has relied on a validation tool, but the data from that tool does not provide any narrative description. The court said this is the gap it wants NITAAC to fill in the administrative record.
Some of the protesters argued that the agency would merely fix its documentation without making any substantive effort to address their concerns. But the court was skeptical of their position.
The court has sent the case back to NITAAC and the agency is due to file an update by Jan. 21, 2025. NITAAC can ask for an extension at that time.
The companies can also file amended protests after NITAAC files its updated report.
CIO-SP3 continues through April 2025, but could be extended again if needed.