Hi readers—Quick programming note. You may notice that the snippets are not in today's newsletter. That's because, next week, I'm planning on sending out two GovContrActually posts: a snippets-only edition earlier in the week and a more traditional narrative post later in the
Incumbent on a contract for information technology support services to USCIS lost to a lower bidder. The incumbent argued that the winner was engaging in a "bait and switch" with its personnel, with an ultimate intention of hiring the incumbent's staff. But the GAO found that the protestor failed to allege that the "awardee either knowingly or negligently represented that it would rely on specific personnel that the firm did not have a reasonable basis to expect to furnish during contract performance based on place of performance." Accordingly, the protest was denied.
Also! Another GenAI hallucination case! Here, the protester's counsel used Westlaw's "CoCounsel" and admitted that he " failed to correct all the erroneous citations in the final supplemental protest filed with our Office." Gotta watch out for those robots!
In 2019, the Army awarded a contract for support services for the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) to KBR Services, LLC. From 2019 to 2025, the contract grew from $163 million to $2.5 billion. In April 2025, the Army issued a class justification for exception to fair opportunity that extended task orders as logical follow-ons. Amentum protested, arguing that the extension was not permissible. GAO, however, determined that it will review follow-on, sole-source decisions under FAR Part 16.5 then same way it reviews similar decisions under FAR Part 8.4: under a reasonableness standard. And based on that standard, the GAO concluded that the Army had "reasonably demonstrated that the sole‑source extension is a logical follow‑on to the EUCOM PTO, and that all LOGCAP V IDIQ contract holders had a fair opportunity to be considered for that PTO." Protest denied.
GAO: Amentum Parsons Logistics Services LLC, B-417506.15 (Feb. 4, 2026).
First, let's admire the abbreviations for this OASIS+ task order:
DarkStar Intelligence, LLC, of Woodbridge, Virginia, protests the Department of the Air Force's issuance of a task order to Strategic Alliance Business Group (SABG), of Fairfax, Virginia, pursuant to fair opportunity proposal request (FOPR) No. FA2518-25-R-0033, to provide advisory and assistance services “for Space Electromagnetic Warfare (SEW), Space Domain Awareness (SDA), and Orbital Warfare (OW) forces to perform USSF [United States Space Force] missions.”
Now, for the innovation!
SABG's proposed innovative “Accelerated Ops Integration” and “Sensor Optimization Process” are designed to deliver significant advantages to the Government by prioritizing foreign/commercial sensors through an accelerated process [and] boosts analysis efficiency, yielding time, cost, and manpower savings.
Based on the innovation, the government gave SABG a "good" technical approach rating and made an award despite a $2 million price premium. Protestor argued that the solicitation never listed innovation as a formal evaluation factor. But GAO disagreed, noting that the "solicitation expressly provided for assessments of strengths, along with higher adjectival ratings, for proposals that exceeded the solicitation's stated requirements." Denied.
Army awarded $780M for a test support contract to the incumbent. Protestor argued that agency failed to properly consider the incumbent's past performance on a different contract. And, in fact, the GAO found that the government failed to consider the incumbent's negative CPARS evaluation. And yet, GAO found no competitive prejudice because the CPARS evaluation was not enough to meaningfully change the agency's confidence levels in the incumbent. Additionally, GAO noted that the protestor's argument on the management approach failed because the incumbent's "more detailed approach" with regard to university partnerships "described benefits warranted a significant strength while [the protestor's] less detailed description of its university partnership approach did not." Despite a $55 million price premium, the government's best value determination was left alone and the protest was denied.
The GSA IG, as part of its review of the Multiple Award Schedules pricing efforts, found that "federal customer agencies relying on GSA pricing on schedule contracts are at risk of overpaying for products due to significant price variability." The IG made a number of recommendations though, in its response, the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) Commissioner responded that "FAS believes the report lacks sufficient context and the findings are overstated."
The GSA Integrated Award Environment is moving to decommission two legacy services (eSRS and FPDS) and roll them both into the System for Award Management (i.e., SAM.gov) in the next 2 weeks.
GSA: eSRS.gov Will Decommission on February 20, 2026 (Feb 5, 2026)
GSA: FPDS.gov Decommissions on February 24, 2026 ( Feb 9, 2026)
The Army Corps of Engineers sought sealed bids. The low bidder failed to acknowledge Amendment 3, but the ACE accepted the low bid anyway. Protestor alleged that the failure to acknowledge and accept Amendment 3 was material even though acknowledging the amendment wouldn't have changed the price spread. GAO agreed explaining that "an amendment is deemed material to an IFB if the amendment adds requirements to contract performance which were not contained in the original IFB." And by failing to acknowledge a material amendment, the lowest bid should have been deemed nonresponsive. (Or, as GAO delightfully wrote "failure to acknowledge the amendment was not merely a matter of failing to follow the punctilios of the solicitation.") Protest sustained
GAO: Morrish-Wallace Construction d/b/a Ryba Marine Construction Co., B-423796.2 (Feb 05, 2026)
Same basic fact pattern as in "Not an interested party if you aren't on the QPL." Protestor challenged a $1.3 billion sole-source contract by the Forest Service. As before, the protestor was not an interested party. Also, GAO rejected the protestor's "bundling" claim, finding that the agency demonstrated that bundling was "necessary to ensure uninterrupted, safe, and consistent application of the product." Protest dismissed.
GAO: Kaiterra Fire Systems, LLC, B-423952.2,B-423952.4 (Feb 04, 2026)
GSA issued a solicitation for its 4PL ("Fourth-Party Logistics") program in which it requested vendors to quote a "market basket." Noting the "long history of gamesmanship related to the market basket in prior 4PL procurements," GSA disallowed discounts on individual items in the market basket. The protestor alleged that this violated the GSAR rule on voluntary discounts, but GSA and GAO agreed that the GSAR does not require GSA to accept voluntary discounts, even if offered. Protest denied.
Protestor alleged that ManTech had unmitigable organizational conflicts of interests. After the protest, the agency's Head of Contracting Activity executed an OCI waiver. Because the waiver met the procedural requirements of FAR 9.503, the protestor's OCI claims failed.
The protestor also challenged the agency's technical evaluation, but the GAO rejected those challenges.
But of particular note, the protestor alleged that the agency failed to conduct an adequate responsibility determination because the agency did not review an "Administrative Agreement" with USCIS that would have raised concerns. Apparently, the agency relied on "DORA bot" which is "an automation tool Army contracting officials are required to use to assist them in making responsibility determinations," and DORA bot didn't find the Administrative Agreement. Although DORA bot missed it, because the contracting officer was also unaware of the Administrative Agreement, the GAO denied the protestor's claims.
