Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Richard Arnholt provided insight for a Law360 article examining the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) rejection of bid protests questioning an unusual contracting model based on point-scoring that emphasized technical factors over cost. In this case, the General Services Administration (GSA) awarded a $65 billion IDIQ contract for IT services, Alliant II, to 60 of the highest rated offerors by first ranking offerors technically and then determining if the top 60 offerors’ prices were fair and reasonable. As Richard points out in the article, “[y]ou want companies that are on the cutting edge of IT services … you want the guys that really know their stuff. If you think about the fact that these providers on Alliant II are likely going to be called into agencies to help them deal with cybersecurity issues that go far beyond IT, into national security, we want the best IT service providers in the country to be on this contract.”
The full article, “GAO Opens Door For More Point-Scored Contracts,” was published by Law360 on January 30, 2017, and is available online.