Closing the Bid Protest Case Law Knowledge GapContract Protest Diagnostic Tool (CPDT)

Abstract

Federal contract formation is governed by three main types of legal authorities: statutory, regulatory, and decisional. Contracting officers have easy access to statutory and regulatory authorities but do not have easy access to decisional authorities (bid protest decisions). Most federal contracting officers do not have subscriptions to expensive legal research tools such as LexisNexis or Westlaw and are forced to research bid protest information through myriad ways ranging from Google searches to government contracting blogs. Despite this lack of access to published bid protest decisions, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 1.602-1 mandates that “no contract shall be entered into unless the contracting officer ensures that all requirements of law … have been met.” Some of those “requirements of law” are created through published protest decisions from the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In response to this access and knowledge gap, the MITRE Corporation has created a “Contract Protest Diagnostic Tool” (CPDT)TM. It is currently being sponsored by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). This paper explains this problem and how the CPDT delivers bid protest information to the federal acquisition workforce.