Protest Denied: A Qualitative Meta-Analysis of Failed Challenges to Government Contracting
Publication: Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction
Volume 15, Issue 2
Abstract
Firms interested in doing business with the US federal government, one of the biggest spenders in the world, may have reasons to believe they have been denied fair opportunities to compete for federal government contracts. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) provides an expeditious forum where interested parties can challenge government procurement decisions. In this meta-summary, the authors qualitatively analyzed 17 denied bid protests filed against the US Army Corps of Engineers to identify quasi-legal bases that the GAO most frequently took in its denial of bid protests. The findings were abstracted into 12 themes with corresponding frequency effect sizes. Finally, three recent denied bid protests were reviewed in light of the themes to validate the effectiveness of the findings. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge about one aspect of the US government acquisition practice, i.e., denying bid protests, and presents findings that can limitedly assist small businesses as defined by the relevant regulations to test the validity of their cases in advance.
Practical Applications
This article presents the 12 quasi-legal reasons most frequently taken by the US GAO in denying 17 bid protests filed against the US Army Corps of Engineers. More recent denied bid protests showed that the GAO used some of the same reasons to deny the bid protests. Thus, by reviewing what has been reported herein, firms interested in challenging procurement decisions made by agencies within the US federal government can limitedly discern whether their protests would be denied based on those reasons. Small businesses that probably lack in-house legal resources can look at the findings before filing their bid protests. More proactively, bidders can have their proposals tested by the findings before submitting them to limitedly increase the likelihood of winning government contracts. Finally, it is important to acknowledge that as new GAO decisions are made continually, the thematic findings will expand and become more sophisticated.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code, including the NVivo files, that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
YK expresses his appreciation for Professors Michelle Bensi, Qingbin Cui, Gerald Galloway, and Gideon Mark at the University of Maryland. Their constructive criticism of the initial work helped improve this study’s outcome.
References
Works Cited
Arena, M., B. Persons, I. Blickstein, M. Chenoweth, G. Lee, D. Luckey, and A. Schendt. 2018. Assessing bid protests of US Department of defense procurements: Identifying issues, trends, and drivers. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Armstrong, T. H. 2018. Bid protests at GAO: A descriptive guide. 10th ed. Washington, DC: US Government Accountability Office.
Canayaz, M., J. Cornaggia, and K. R. Cornaggia. 2019. “Choose your battles wisely: The consequences of protesting government procurement contracts.” SSRN Electron. J. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3286711.
Carpenter, D. H., and M. Schwartz. 2018. Government contract bid protests in brief: Analysis of legal processes and recent developments. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.
Dawson, W. 2021. “Data scarcity in bid protests: Problems and proposed solutions.” Public Contract Law J. 51 (1). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4025355.
Elliott, R., C. T. Fischer, and D. L. Rennie. 1999. “Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields.” Br. J. Clin. Psychol. 38 (3): 215–229. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466599162782.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). n.d.-a. “Bid protests.” Accessed January 21, 2021. https://www.gao.gov/legal/bid-protests.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). n.d.-b. “100 years of GAO.” Accessed January 6, 2021. https://www.gao.gov/about/what-gao-does/hundred-years-of-gao.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020a. Benaka Inc. B-418639: Jul 9, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020b. C.I. Lovell, Inc. B-418935.2: Aug 21, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020c. J&J Worldwide Services B-418148.3: Jun 30, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020d. Netizen Corporation B-418281,B-418281.2,B-418281.3: Feb 21, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020e. NIKA Technologies, Inc. B-418563: Jun 5, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020f. Pacific Dredge and Construction, LLC B-418900: Sep 18, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020g. Pond Constructors, Inc. B-418403: Mar 23, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020h. Prestige Lawncare, Inc. B-418608: Jun 22, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020i. Sevenson Environmental Services, Inc. B-419071: Dec 2, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020j. Wolff & Mueller Government Services GmbH & Co. KG B-419181,B-419181.2: Dec 28, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2020k. W-T, Joint Venture B-417905.2: Dec 7, 2020. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2021a. Butt Construction Company, Inc. B-419156.2: Jan 26, 2021. Washington, DC: GAO.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2021b. GAO bid protest annual report to Congress for fiscal year 2021 (No. GAO-22-900379).” Accessed October 27, 2022. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-900379.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2022a. “ACC Construction Company, Inc. (No. B-420801).” Accessed October 27, 2022. https://www.gao.gov/products/b-420801.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2022b. “Coastal Environmental Group, Inc. (No. B-420390.2,B-420390.3).” Accessed October 27, 2022. https://www.gao.gov/products/b-420390.2%2Cb-420390.3.
GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2022c. “Zafer Taahhut Insaat Ve Tiaret AS (No. B-420280).” Accessed October 27, 2022. https://www.gao.gov/products/b-420280.
Gordon, D. I. 2004. “Annals of accountability: The first published bid protest decision.” Procure. Lawyer 39 (2): 11–13.
Gordon, D. I. 2013. “Bid protests: The costs are real, but the benefits outweigh them.” Public Contract Law J. 42 (3): 489–516.
Hawkins, T. G., C. Yoder, and M. J. Gravier. 2016. “Federal bid protests: Is the tail wagging the dog?” J. Public Procure. 16 (2): 152–190. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOPP-16-02-2016-B001.
Karcher, S., and N. Weber. 2019. “Annotation for transparent inquiry: Transparent data and analysis for qualitative research.” IASSIST Q. 43 (2): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.29173/iq959.
Keeney, S. 2007. “The foundations of government contracting.” J. Contract Manage. 5 (1): 7–19.
Khoury, P. F., B. Walsh, and G. S. Ward. 2017. “A data-driven look at the GAO protest system.” Pratt’s Government Contracting Law Rep. 3 (3): 83–91.
Kim, E. Y. 2020. “Reforming bid protests.” Army Lawyer (3): 66–73.
RAND Corporation. n.d. “About the RAND Corporation.” Accessed September 19, 2022. https://www.rand.org/about.html.
Sandelowski, M., and J. Barroso. 2003. “Creating metasummaries of qualitative findings.” Nurs. Res. 52 (4): 226–233. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-200307000-00004.
Schaengold, M. J., T. M. Guiffre, and E. M. Gill. 2009. “Choice of forum for federal government contract bid protests.” Fed. Circuit Bar J. 18 (2): 243–330.
Snyder, D. M. 2021. “GAO bid protests by small business: Analysis of perceived and reported outcomes in federal contracting.” USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Dept. of Business Administration, Univ. of South Florida.
Timulak, L. 2014. “Qualitative meta-analysis.” In The SAGE handbook of qualitative data analysis, edited by U. Flick, 481–495. London: SAGE.
US Department of the Treasury. 2021. “Financial statements of the United States Government for the Fiscal years ended September 30, 2019, and 2018.” Accessed March 5, 2023. https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/reports-statements/financial-report/current-report.html.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 19, 2022
Accepted: Jan 9, 2023
Published online: Mar 13, 2023
Published in print: May 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Aug 13, 2023
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.