Government Contracts Monitor

Short Takes

August 26, 2013

We previously reported here on the GAO’s June 6, 2013 decision in IBM-U.S. Federal, B-407073.3, in which the GAO sustained two protest grounds raised by IBM challenging the CIA’s $600M commercial cloud services procurement award to Amazon Web Services, Inc. As we noted, the GAO recommended that the CIA reopen the competition and amend the RFP as necessary to ensure that proposals are prepared and evaluated on a common basis because the agency materially relaxed a solicitation term in post-selection negotiations.

On July 9, 2013, the CIA followed GAO’s recommendation and reopened the procurement, amending the RFP, reopening discussions and calling for revised final proposal revisions by August 16, 2013. Amazon has now filed suit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, challenging the CIA’s corrective action and the rationality of the underlying GAO decision, which Amazon contends “contravenes well-established precedent regarding timeliness, standing and prejudice . . . and infringes on the Agency’s substantial discretion to design and conduct procurements.” IBM has intervened to support the corrective action. The case has been assigned to Judge Wheeler, and oral argument on cross-motions for judgment on the administrative record has been scheduled for October 7, 2013. Stay tuned here for further developments.

Hopewell Darnielle is the attorney responsible for the content of this article.