Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI)

In Peraton Inc., B-423639 (September 17, 2025), Peraton Inc. protested the General Services Administration’s award of a task order to General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) for IT lifecycle support services at U.S. Strategic Command. Peraton challenged several aspects of the agency’s evaluation and award decision. It argued that the agency had applied unstated evaluation criteria by placing excessive emphasis on audiovisual (A/V) engineering support requirements that were not clearly highlighted as evaluation factors. Peraton also claimed that the agency improperly double-counted weaknesses, penalizing the same alleged deficiency in both the technical and staffing evaluation areas.

Emissary LLC, the incumbent contractor, protested the Department of Defense’s Washington Headquarters Services’ award of a contract to Gemini Industries for technical support services to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict. (See emissary LLC, B-422388.3, et al., July 29, 2025.) GAO sustained the protest, finding that the agency conducted a flawed technical evaluation, improperly credited past performance, and failed to evaluate the impact of an OCI mitigation plan that altered the awardee’s technical approach. This is a rare case where a protester prevailed on both evaluation and organizational conflict of interest (OCI) grounds, offering a roadmap for what can go wrong when agencies rush or overlook key details in an awardee’s proposal.

Articles Posted in Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI)

No Unstated Criteria, No Double Counting and No OCI: GAO Rejects Peraton’s Claims in $1 Billion Procurement

Protester Pulls Off Trifecta: GAO Sustains on Technical, Past Performance and OCI Grounds