It is a fundamental tenet of government contracts that procuring agencies treat all offerors equally. In this regard, adjudicative forums have long held that procuring agencies must provide all offerors with a common basis for preparing and submitting proposals. Such equal treatment necessarily requires the government to evaluate proposals of all offerors impartially and evenhandedly against the solicitation requirements and the evaluation criteria. Furthermore, once the evaluation is complete, agencies must adequately document their award decision, which should reflect the equal application of the stated criteria to all proposals. If an agency disparately evaluates offerors with respect to the same solicitation requirements, it may be subject to a post-award protest. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviews protests alleging disparate treatment by examining the record to determine whether the agency’s evaluation decision was reasonable and in accordance with the evaluation factors provided in the request for proposals (RFP). The GAO will sustain the protest and typically recommend a reevaluation if it determines that the agency treated the offerors’ proposals disparately or unequally, such as by evaluating the protester’s proposal using a stricter standard than the awardee’s proposal.

The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) bid protest regulations require protesters to provide a detailed statement of the legal and factual grounds of protest. While the GAO does not require protesters to file formal briefs or other technical forms of pleadings or motions, protesters must nevertheless file concise and logically arranged protests that clearly state legally sufficient protest grounds. On July 14, 2025, the GAO submitted a proposal in response to Section 885 of the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, clarifying and enhancing its pleading standard. While this new pleading standard is not a significant change from the previous standard, it provides added clarification that protesters’ bare allegations are insufficient to meet GAO’s pleading requirements. Under this new standard, protesters must provide, at a minimum, credible allegations that are supported by evidence and are sufficient, if uncontradicted, to establish the likelihood of the protester’s claim of improper agency action. Stated another way, protesters must provide more than a bare allegation, such that the allegation is supported by some explanation and evidence that establishes the likelihood the protester will prevail in its claim. In practical terms, the GAO will continue to dismiss protests or specific allegations within that are based on speculation, factual inaccuracies, or flawed legal assumptions.

The government may use the sole-source authority in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) § 6.302-1 when there is a reasonable basis to conclude that its minimum needs can only be satisfied by one responsible source. In this regard, a procuring agency has the discretion to determine its needs and the best method to accommodate them, especially in procurements involving matters of national defense or human safety. Protesters disagreement with the government’s judgment concerning its needs, without more, is insufficient to prove that the government’s judgment is unreasonable. However, even in such procurements, potential alternative sources must be afforded a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate their ability to meet the agency’s needs. When prospective sources are excluded from competition in favor of a sole-source award without the chance to demonstrate their ability to meet the requirement, they are entitled to file a bid protest provided they qualify as an interested party. To qualify as an interested party to file a Government Accountability Office (GAO) protest, the protester must be eligible for the award based on the current record. A protester is not considered an interested party if it is not eligible to receive a contract award even if its protest is to be sustained.