It was a little over two weeks ago when the first rumbles of CIO-SP4 protests emerged on social media. And a week ago, on Oct 11th, we saw 10 companies file protests against the GWAC. Presumably, the protesters are taking issue with how the first-round cut-off was set-up, evaluated and/or handled. The filing date for all 10 companies was October 11th.
Since a protest challenging a contract award (or in this case a down-select) must be filed within 10 days of the protester discovering the basis of the protest, and the notice of down-select going out on or around October 30th in some cases, it is safe to say no more protests are likely to come in this round. But, with CIO-SP4, anything is possible. There were at least 10 protests during the solicitation period – some of which were filed as far back as August 19, 2021.
As we wrote earlier, and has been reported elsewhere, most companies are unhappy with how the evaluation seemed to favor capabilities usually aligned with large companies (e.g., EVM, approved accounting systems, etc.).
The GAO has 100 days to resolve protests – but they can often resolve them faster than that. 100 days from October 11th is Thursday, January 19, 2023. So mark your calendars.
Officially, NITAAC is still reporting they plan to have CIO-SP4 awarded by 11/1/22 (screenshot in case it changes):
Here is a list of the 10 companies with Open CIO-SP4 protests:
- 2050 Technology
- Dfuse Technologies
- ImpactOne joint venture
- MicroHealth
- Occam Solutions
- QuantaHub Squared – (Will Rohde wrote one of the first posts on LinkedIn about protesting and is on the board of QuantaHub Squared)
- Red Oak Solutions*
- SDV International
- SOFITC JV
- Spatial Front
- White Oak Solutions*
*two companies named after trees has to be a weird coincidence, right?
Stay Tuned and if we hear something, we’ll be sure to share.