As GAO Reopens Post-Shutdown, Contract Awardees Should Leverage a Powerful Early Tactic to Defeat Bid Protests

With the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) poised to reopen and agencies resuming solicitations, awards, and debriefings, contractors should expect a sharp uptick in bid protest activity in the coming months. In that environment, early procedural positioning can matter for contract awardees as much as substantive evaluation challenges. GAO’s recent decision in Amentum Parsons Logistics Services LLC—Reconsideration, B-422697.14, offers a timely reminder of where the early battles may be won or lost. GAO effectively validated a strategy for awardees to intervene and refocus the dispute on the protester’s standing—by demonstrating on the face of the proposal that the protester was ineligible for award—even where the agency itself did not rely on that defect during the evaluation. As protests surge following the shutdown, both awardees and disappointed offerors should understand this development and calibrate their strategies accordingly.

The Decision, in Brief

The dispute arose out of a task order competition under the fifth iteration of the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP V), where Amentum Parsons Logistics Services LLC (APLS) protested an award to KBR Services, LLC (KBR). Notably, the agency had rated APLS “Acceptable” for Small Business Participation and did not raise concerns about that factor during discussions. When APLS protested the award, KBR intervened, arguing that APLS was not an interested party because internal inconsistencies in APLS’s Small Business Participation Plan, read together with the technical and price volumes, rendered its proposal ineligible for award under the solicitation’s Acceptable/Unacceptable regime.

In its original decision, GAO dismissed APLS’s protest for lack of standing. GAO found that APLS’s proposal was internally inconsistent on a material requirement, and therefore ineligible for an award. The decision concluded that the Army was required to either resolve the inconsistencies or evaluate APLS’s proposal as ineligible for an award.

APLS requested reconsideration, arguing that GAO made a legal error by effectively excluding it from consideration when the agency itself had not done so, and would have been required to reopen discussions to do so. GAO dismissed the reconsideration request, reasoning that APLS could have made those arguments earlier and failed to respond when KBR first raised the standing issue during the original protest.  

GAO’s decision underscores two points that could loom large in a post‑shutdown protest wave: (i) the burden to establish standing rests with the protester and remains live throughout the case; and (ii) GAO may scrutinize proposal materials to resolve standing even if the agency did not identify or rely on the defect.

Why This Matters Now

As debriefings resume and new awards are issued in quick succession, APLS shows that intervenors should look for opportunities to short‑circuit a protest by identifying facial, material non-compliances in the protester’s proposal and pressing a standing challenge immediately. In the post‑shutdown rush, where agencies and offerors alike will be processing large volumes of proposals and awards, the likelihood of latent proposal inconsistencies, cross‑volume misalignments, or unaddressed Acceptable/Unacceptable requirements increases. Intervenors that surface those defects early may end a protest before GAO reaches any evaluation merits.

For protesters, APLS is a cautionary reminder that an “Acceptable” rating from the agency is not a safe harbor at GAO if the proposal record contains unresolved internal conflict on a material requirement. Moreover, the window to preserve interested‑party status can be narrow. When an intervenor challenges standing, a prompt, targeted response addressing the alleged defect—and, where appropriate, seeking leave to address it—may be outcome‑determinative.

Practical Implications for Post‑Shutdown Protest Strategy

In the near term, intervenors should be prepared to lead with standing arguments where the solicitation uses threshold ratings or strict “Pass/Fail” compliance requirements. Effective presentations will synthesize statements across technical, small business, and price volumes as needed to demonstrate irreconcilable commitments or omissions that render the protester ineligible.

APLS shows GAO is willing to read across volumes for material inconsistency even where the agency did not.
Protesters, conversely, must treat standing as a front‑end briefed issue rather than a perfunctory assertion. Protesters must be prepared to address compliance with Acceptable/Unacceptable factors and internal proposal alignment explicitly. If an intervenor later raises a standing challenge, the protester’s failure to respond directly and promptly may be treated as dispositive.

Key Takeaways

APLS does not change GAO’s substantive protest law, but it highlights the practical dynamics of early protest litigation. First, intervenors can and should treat standing as a threshold merits issue, and GAO may independently examine the proposal record to resolve it. Second, an agency’s Acceptable rating will not insulate a protester if the record demonstrates material inconsistency with a solicitation’s threshold requirements. Third, standing is a continuing burden; silence in the face of a targeted challenge can end the case.

As the government shutdown ends and GAO’s protest docket accelerates, these lessons give both sides concrete, immediate steps to strengthen their position from day one. The volume of actions that will follow reopening only raises the premium on early, disciplined, and record‑anchored briefing on standing.