With the end of the fiscal year approaching and contracts are awarded, more contractors are considering whether filing a bid protest makes sense. Eric Crusius, partner at Holland & Knight, says that because the process means “suing your customer,” companies should only protest for the right reasons.
“Companies spend a lot of money to bid on certain things. It is part of a strategic plan and sometimes they just want an answer. One thing to look at is how much information have you gotten as a contractor? Do you know exactly what happened? If you know what happened, are you just filing this protest because you are mad, or are you filing because there a strategic reason, or you haven’t gotten enough information, or the information you have gotten gives you pause about what happened?” Crusius said. “They have put thousands of dollars putting a proposal together, sometimes they want a little bit of clarity.”
