HASC to ask GAO to investigate protests

May 19, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Congress, Contract Awards, Editorial, Federal Budget Process, GAO, Protest 

As part of their work on the defense budget the HASC is going to ask the GAO to investigate whether there are too many protests. See the story here. As we have previously discussed ad nauseum there is little disincentive for a losing contractor to protest. At the best they win, and the worst they lose but it takes little time and money to cut the necessary legal documents and fax them in. With the number of large contracts declining, and their worth growing, there will continue to be protests as the various contracts awarded. It has not just been for large development and procurement contracts, there have been protests of service ones as well. The GAO dismisses most of the protests as it takes a really big screw up by the acquisition and contract people to uphold them, but the delay the programs and cost the winner and the government time and money. Since the right to protest is pretty much part of Federal contract law it will be hard to change the number without changing that, unless the Congress wants to start punishing for frivolous protests. That is not common in American legal tradition, but we will see.

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