Tracking the latest developments at the GAO and Court of Federal Claims
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What happens when a protester claims the agency failed to treat two similarly situated proposals the same, but the record shows they weren’t really alike? That was the central issue in iAdeptive Technologies, LLC, B-424158, et al. (March 6, 2026)​. After losing a best-value competition to Red Tail Digital where there was a razor-thin price difference, iAdeptive challenged the evaluation from multiple angles. It argued that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had unequally evaluated the proposals, penalizing iAdeptive for weaknesses that also appeared in Red Tail’s quotation. It also took aim at Red Tail’s mentor-protégé joint venture structure, asserting that the agency improperly relied on the mentor’s experience while ignoring the protégé’s, and failed to ensure the protégé would perform its required share of the work.

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When a contractor files a protest at the Government Accountability Office, the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) normally hits the pause button on the procurement. Performance of the challenged contract is automatically stayed, sometimes for up to 100 days, while GAO considers the protest. But agencies have one powerful tool to keep work moving: a CICA stay override.

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In Advantaged Solutions, Inc. v. United States, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, No. 25-1806 (Jan. 30, 2026), Advantaged Solutions, Inc. (ASI) protested the Defense Logistics Agency’s decision to rescind an initial award to ASI and instead award a $130 million SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) services contract to Oakland Consulting Group. The procurement involved software upgrades to DLA’s ERP platform. After initially finding Oakland technically unacceptable and awarding to ASI, DLA discovered that evaluators had treated identical proposal language differently in assessing the offerors’ Hybrid Agile methodology. DLA issued a stop-work order, reevaluated the proposals, found both technically acceptable and awarded to Oakland as the lowest-priced technically acceptable offeror.

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In Marvin Test Solutions, Inc., B-423928; B-423928.2 (Jan. 28, 2026), Marvin Test Solutions filed a pre-award protest challenging the Department of the Air Force’s RFP for a common armament tester (CAT-F) system for F-15, F-16 and A-10 fighter aircraft. Marvin argued that the agency was required to conduct the procurement as a commercial item acquisition under FAR Part 12 and that the solicitation was unduly restrictive of competition, particularly with respect to a minimum screen size requirement for the handheld operational-level (O-level) tester.

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In Centerline Logistics Corporation, B-423838, et al. (Jan. 7, 2026), Centerline Logistics Corp. protested the Air Force’s award of a roughly $200 million fuel transportation services contract to Vane Line Bunkering. Centerline challenged multiple aspects of the evaluation and source selection decision, arguing that the agency applied unstated evaluation criteria, treated offerors disparately, failed to consider negative information “too close at hand,” and did not conduct meaningful discussions regarding the relevance of Centerline’s past performance. GAO denied the protest in its entirety. In doing so, the decision serves as a useful refresher on several important protest doctrines—and the high bar protesters must clear to prevail in a GAO protest.

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Twice in one week, GAO dismissed bid protests as untimely, with each case highlighting a different but equally unforgiving timeliness trap. In ASG Solutions Corp., B-424053 (Jan. 16, 2026), the protester mistakenly assumed it was entitled to a FAR Part 15 debriefing in a FAR Part 13 procurement, incorrectly believing that its protest clock had been tolled. In Mission Analytics, LLC, B-423980 (Jan. 14, 2026), the protester miscalculated the deadline for filing a follow-on GAO protest after initial adverse agency action, and missed the filing deadline by one minute. Together, the decisions underscore GAO’s strict enforcement of its timeliness rules and serve as a reminder that misunderstandings about debriefings, agency-level protests and filing deadlines are often fatal to otherwise potentially successful protest challenges.

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In Manutek Inc., B-423476.2, et al. (Jan. 1, 2026), Manutek protested the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s decision not to award it an IDIQ contract for professional, scientific and technical services under the ProTech 2.0 Weather Domain. The protest focused largely on the agency’s evaluation of Manutek’s oral presentation, including alleged flaws in time management, documentation, evaluator judgments and the conduct of the post-presentation interactive dialogue.

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In Markon LLC, B-423767, et al. (Dec. 12, 2025), Markon protested the Central Intelligence Agency’s award to Arcfield for business operations, IT engineering and business enterprise modernization support. Markon challenged the CIA’s cost realism evaluation, arguing that the agency improperly relied on oral instructions given during pre-solicitation industry one-on-one sessions, instructions that were never incorporated into the final RFP. According to Markon, the CIA used those oral statements to reject Markon’s proposed efficiencies and imposed a significant upward cost adjustment instead of evaluating whether Markon’s proposed costs were realistic for its unique technical approach. GAO sustained the protest, finding that the CIA evaluated proposals using unstated criteria and failed to conduct the cost realism analysis required by the solicitation and procurement regulations.

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In Island Creek Associates, LLC, B-423301.3 (Dec. 5, 2025), Island Creek Associates protested the Department of the Navy’s award to StraCon Services Group for program management contractor support services. Island Creek did not challenge any aspect of the Navy’s evaluation of proposals. Instead, its protest focused solely on alleged organizational and personal conflicts of interest related to StraCon’s subcontractor, Precise Systems Inc., who was the incumbent contractor. Island Creek claimed that Precise gained an unfair competitive advantage from access to proprietary information and due to the involvement of a senior Navy official whose wife worked for Precise. GAO denied the protest in its entirety and provided a detailed analysis of conflict of interest law.

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In Chugach Logistics and Facility Services JV, LLC, B-423690 (Nov. 20, 2025​), CLFS protested an $80 million award by the Department of the Navy to CCS King George 2 LLC (CCS KG) for base operations support at Naval Base Coronado. CLFS alleged that the Navy unreasonably evaluated proposals under the corporate experience, past performance and price factors, and improperly failed to consider certain performance data that it claimed was “too close at hand.” GAO rejected all of CLFS’ challenges, finding that the Navy acted within its discretion and in accordance with the solicitation.​

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