December 2018

The Coast Guard issued a solicitation for a fixed-price task order for project management, technical support, and logistics services for its Aviation Logistics Center. The solicitation required offerors to submit resumes for all positions, which the Government would evaluate to determine whether the qualifications and experience met or exceeded the position requirements. The Coast Guard received six proposals and after reviewing them, established a competitive range consisting of Sev1Tech and STI-TEC. Ultimately, the award went to STI-TEC whereupon Sev1Tech appealed contending that STI-TEC’s proposal contained a material misrepresentation in that it proposed personnel for which it did not have a reasonable expectation would be available for performance under the task order.

Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Material Misrepresentation in Offeror’s Proposal

Since 1987, there has been statutory recognition for contractor offsets for defective cost or pricing data that resulted in understated costs. Whenever the Government challenges a contractor for failing to submit current, complete, and accurate cost or pricing data, the contractor is entitled to offset the cost impact of that defective pricing with other facts that went in the Government’s favor.

Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: What Are Defective Pricing “Offsets”?

As we discussed yesterday, contractors and subcontractors are prohibited from discharging, demoting, or otherwise discriminating against an employee as a reprisal for disclosing evidence of gross mismanagement of a federal contract, a gross waste of federal funds, an abuse of authority relating to a federal contract, a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety, or a violation of law, rule, or regulation related to a federal contract.

Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Whistleblower Protection for Contractor Employees – Legal Costs