GAO Denies JTMS Protest: OCI Due Diligence, Demonstration “Musts,” and Late Price Concessions
Accenture Federal Services, LLC protested the award of an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract to CACI, Inc.-Federal under a U.S. Transportation Command procurement for implementation of the Joint Transportation Management System, a modernization effort combining business-process change with deployment and sustainment of a commercial enterprise resource planning solution. United States Transportation Command structured the competition as a phased approach (with an advisory down-select), culminating in a best-value tradeoff where non-price factors collectively outweighed cost/price. After multiple rounds of discussions, the agency selected CACI, Inc.-Federal over Accenture Federal Services, LLC, finding CACI higher-rated under the most important technical factor and lower-priced overall.
The protest principally attacked organizational conflicts of interest (including alleged unequal access to information, biased ground rules, and impaired objectivity), the evaluation of CACI’s solution demonstration, and the agency’s acceptance of CACI’s late cost/price reductions. On the OCI record, the contracting officer performed a methodical, contract-by-contract review of CACI and key subcontractors, identified potential touchpoints, and concluded either no meaningful OCI existed or that mitigation measures were sufficient; for certain contingencies, the agency also described additional safeguards for possible future task-order performance. GAO reiterated that a protester must present “hard facts,” not inference, to establish an OCI, and it will not second-guess an agency that has meaningfully considered the alleged conflicts and reached a reasonable conclusion.
A notable feature of the decision is GAO’s treatment of “potential” OCIs in the IDIQ context. Accenture argued the agency effectively conceded a potential OCI by planning to seek further mitigation from a subcontractor in the future. GAO rejected the premise that any conceivable future conflict requires pre-award remediation, emphasizing the FAR’s focus on significant potential conflicts and accepting the agency’s approach of monitoring and addressing OCI risk at the task-order level when the actual contours of performance become definite. That framing—distinguishing a remote/hypothetical possibility from a “significant potential” OCI—may be the most practically useful legal point for practitioners counseling teams on OCI posture in long-horizon IDIQ programs.
On the solution demonstration argument, Accenture pointed to solicitation language stating offerors “shall” address all scenario requirements and argued CACI’s failure to clearly demonstrate two funds-control aspects was disqualifying. GAO agreed with the agency that the solicitation’s evaluation structure did not establish an “all-or-nothing” acceptability gate for demonstrations; instead, demonstrations were scored on a confidence spectrum (without an “unacceptable” rating), and the evaluators reasonably treated the shortfall as a weakness that reduced confidence rather than as a deficiency rendering the proposal ineligible.
Finally, GAO upheld the agency’s acceptance of CACI’s post-discussions price reductions where the record showed reductions were confined to profit/fee, not direct labor rates or professional compensation. Because the solicitation used agency “plug” inputs to compute evaluated price and did not require offeror-specific staffing/hour constructs, GAO found it reasonable for the agency to conclude that lower profit/fee—standing alone—did not undermine technical realism, particularly where the agency also assessed whether the revised profit/fee remained sufficient to incentivize performance.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. GAO decisions are fact-specific; contractors should consult qualified counsel regarding OCI strategy, proposal compliance, and protest risk in their particular procurements.