GAO Protest Update: Understanding “Meaningful Discussions” in Contract Competitions

In today’s Federal marketplace, it is very common to see solicitations that give the Agency the option of entering into discussions with offerors.  The primary objective of discussions is to maximize competition and, in turn, the Agency’s ability to obtain the best possible value. Once it makes the decision to enter into discussions, the Agency must do so in good faith and with all offerors remaining in the competition.  Further, the discussions themselves must be “meaningful” – a fairly subjective standard that (predictably) often works its way into bid protests. In a nutshell, to be meaningful, discussions must identify proposal deficiencies and significant weaknesses that reasonably could be addressed in order to materially enhance the offeror’s potential for award.  The discussions also need to be sufficiently detailed to lead the offeror to the areas of its proposal that require revision or amplification. …

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