Severino Law Prevails in Bid Protest

Takeaways:

• With bid protests, contractors must act quickly and ascertain and review the applicable procurement regulations.

Recently, Mike Severino secured a victory for a client in a bid protest involving the electronic receipt of a bid. 

In the invitation for bids, the procuring agency required contractors to submits bids, with attachments, via email to the procurement officer’s email inbox. The client timely submitted its bid. However, the email was apparently intercepted by the agency’s IT system, which prevented it from going to the PO’s inbox. Consequently, the procuring agency deemed the client’s bid untimely and unresponsive.

Acting on a short timeframe, Mike was able to review the pertinent procurement regulations and coordinate with the client’s IT vendor to prepare the successful bid protest. After submitting the protest, and the procurement agency undertaking its own IT review, the agency sustained the protest and accepted the client’s bid.

With bid protests, timing is paramount.  Contractors almost always need to file protests within a very short time period – often as short as five or seven days. Also, procurement agencies – either the State, a county, an individual school system, a state agency, etc. – often have their own specific procurement regulations that one must review and analyze.