New decisions, rules and guidance a contracting officer should know about, with the line that actually matters. This is the current issue.
3 Nov 2026GAO sustainGAO sustained Michael Baker-International Stantec JV's protest of the Army Corps of Engineers' architect-engineer selection under synopsis W9128F25RA029, a Brooks Act / FAR part 36 competition for about five IDIQ contracts in the Northwestern Division, with task orders from $250,000 to $25 million against $200 million of shared capacity. Sixteen firms submitted; MBIS ranked tenth and the top seven went to interviews. The Corps had assigned MBIS a weakness under specialized experience because none of its ten example projects was a traditional design-bid-build new construction vertical facility — a requirement the synopsis's own list of project types never mentioned, and which the Corps had disclaimed in a question and answer stating "[t]here is not a preference" between delivery methods. GAO held the weakness "unreasonable, because it is inconsistent with the synopsis's stated evaluation factors," resolved doubt about prejudice in MBIS's favour given how little separated it from the seventh-ranked firm, and denied the rest — historic preservation, the Section G matrix, past performance and capacity. Decided 16 October 2026; posted by GAO 3 November 2026.
The two documents that sank this evaluation were the synopsis's list of project types and an answer to a vendor question, and both were written months before the board sat down. Before your board evaluates, read the synopsis bullet list and every Q&A answer back against the evaluation sheet, and strike any strength or weakness that turns on something neither document asked for — a delivery method, a facility type, a contract vehicle. An answer saying there is no preference is a commitment, and it binds the board as firmly as the synopsis does. The remedy here was a reevaluation and a new ranking of the most highly qualified firms, plus protest costs and attorneys' fees under 4 C.F.R. 21.8(d)(1), which is the cheapest possible loss and still cost the Corps its selection. Two more things worth taking from it. The firm that ranked tenth won because GAO resolved prejudice in its favour when the gap to seventh was one adjectival rating, so do not assume a lower-ranked protester cannot reach you. And the decision notes DoD's class deviation adopting the overhaul versions took effect 1 February 2026 while this synopsis predated it; nobody argued the difference mattered here, but on anything you issue now, cite the text your agency is actually running.
GAO, B-424641, B-424641.2 →
6 Nov 2026GAO jurisdictionGAO denied NDCHealth Corporation's protest, trading as RelayHealth, of a CMS solicitation for Medicare Part D transaction facilitator services — RFQ 75FCMC26Q0067, a fixed-price task order worth about $131.7 million over a base year and four options, competed among Federal Supply Schedule holders under SIN 54151S. RelayHealth was the incumbent, but its own FSS contract expired on 12 April 2026, and GAO held that because the RFQ was restricted to schedule holders it was "not eligible to compete under the RFQ" and so "not an interested party to raise these allegations" — which removed its challenges to how the two competing quotations were priced and evaluated. What survived was its attack on CMS's determination that the services are commercial, and that lost on deference: the determination "will not be disturbed by our Office unless it is shown to be unreasonable," and market research returning twelve responses, most pointing to schedule vehicles, made it reasonable. GAO also rejected the argument that a labour-rate, fixed-price structure departs from customary commercial practice, and found nothing in the GSAR requiring an order-level-materials analysis before the RFQ issued. GAO cited "the RFO as the controlling authority for this procurement," under RFO subpart 8.4. Decided 27 October 2026; posted by GAO 6 November 2026.
If you are moving a long-standing requirement onto the schedules, check whether your incumbent still holds a contract on the vehicle you are about to compete — and put the answer in the file, because it decides how much of a protest you have to defend. Where the incumbent's schedule contract has lapsed, its standing to attack the competitive range, the awardee's pricing or the evaluation goes with it, and you are left defending only the decisions it can still reach: the commerciality determination, the solicitation's structure, the scope of the vehicle. That is the other half of the lesson, and it is the half that is yours to earn in advance. The commerciality determination held here because there was market research in the file — an RFI, twelve responses, most of them naming schedule vehicles — and a stated analogue in the commercial market that CMS could modify to the Part D requirement. Deference is not automatic; it attaches to a documented determination. Do the research before you decide the requirement is commercial, not after the protest arrives, and name in the determination which commercial market you are reasoning from.
GAO, B-424672 →
3 Nov 2026GAO scopeGAO denied Priority 1 Air Rescue Operations (Arizona), LP's pre-award protest of a Coast Guard small business set-aside, RFP 70Z02326R93150001, issued 18 June 2026 under Revolutionary FAR Overhaul parts 12 and 15 for three training devices — an MH-60T level 7 flight training device, a hoist training simulator and a deployable hoist training simulator — all required to be interoperable and to run synchronised with latency no greater than 50 milliseconds. The protester argued that combining the three into one solicitation unduly restricted competition. GAO applied the Competition in Contracting Act standard, 41 U.S.C. 3306(a)(2), under which a solicitation may "contain restrictive provisions only to the extent necessary to satisfy the procuring agency's needs," and found the Coast Guard had shown a reasonable need for pilots and flight mechanics to train together in one synchronised environment and for a single contractor to integrate the pieces. A footnote notes that CICA's reach against total-package or bundled procurements is "broader" than the Small Business Act's bundling restrictions, so the protester's bundling framework was not the test. GAO accepted the air training centre commanding officer's declaration, written during the protest, because it "simply fill[ed] in previously unrecorded details" consistent with the working group reports, the approval memorandum and the RFP's own stated reasons; a brand-name allegation about the hoist simulator was dismissed as academic after the Coast Guard amended the RFP. Decided 29 October 2026; posted by GAO 3 November 2026.
Consolidating requirements is defensible and this agency won — but read what carried it. The declaration was credited only because it matched documents that already existed in the file: a working group's reports, an approval memorandum up the chain and the RFP's own statement of why the devices had to interoperate. If you are combining requirements that the market sells separately, write that reasoning down while you are deciding, not when the protest lands, and be specific about the technical reason one contractor has to own the integration — here, a 50-millisecond synchronisation tolerance across three devices. Note also which test you are being graded against. On a set-aside, a protester will often frame the complaint as bundling under the Small Business Act, but at GAO the controlling standard is CICA's, and it is broader: it is not enough that a consolidation clears the bundling rules if the record does not show the restriction is necessary to meet the need. And if you amend to fix a brand-name or specification problem after a protest is filed, GAO will dismiss that ground as academic — which is the cheapest correction available to you in the whole process.
GAO, B-424708 →
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