As of the time of this writing, the number of bid protest cases filed at GAO continues to tick downward over the past ten or so years. See Bid Protests: Key Features and Trends, GAO-25-108652, Jul 22, 2025, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-108652 (last accessed October 21, 2025) (excerpt below).
Why? Like everything else, lawyers are expensive. The win rate isn’t good. Filing deadlines are short and strict. There are a million little hoops to jump through before you ever get to peek under the hood and argue the merits of your case. And even a win is no guarantee that the purchasing agency will eventually award you a contract.
But sometimes, you just have to protest: the agency’s evaluation was manifestly flawed, there’s too much revenue at stake to let the error go unchecked, and your proposal merited that award.
Where do you start? Consult an experienced bid protest lawyer, who will start reviewing and assessing everything related to the solicitation, your proposal, and the contract award justification. One of the first things they’ll be looking at is whether you have “Interested Party” status. And that’s precisely what GAO analyzed in the case, Modesto Management, LLC, B-423728, the topic of this short blog.
There, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) wanted a contractor to perform elevator maintenance services at its Minneapolis hospital. So, it issued a request for quotations (“RFQ”). Pursuant to this RFQ, the VA would select a contractor on a lowest price, technically acceptable (“LPTA”) basis considering two evaluation factors: (1) price and (2) technical. Under the technical evaluation factor, quoters had to supply resumes of at least two elevator technicians currently working for the quoter or the quoter’s subcontractor who would perform the elevator maintenance services in Minneapolis after award.
Modesto Management, LLC (“Modesto”) and 16 other contractors submitted quotes. Of the 17 quotes received, the VA determined that four were technically acceptable. The VA further determined that Modesto’s quote, along with a dozen others, were not. Modesto protested, first at the agency level and then later before GAO.
Modesto’s primary challenge was that its quote was indeed technically acceptable because, contrary to the VA’s findings, it included the required resumes for elevator technicians. It also challenged the evaluation of the awardee’s quote based on its alleged inability to meet a limitation-on-subcontracting requirement. So, what do we have? An unreasonable technical-evaluation protest: not bad. In fact, according to GAO, “unreasonable technical evaluation” was one of the most prevalent reasons for sustaining protests during the 2024 fiscal year. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-900611#_ftn1 (last accessed October 21, 2025).
Modesto was off to a good start. But it did not consider the whole situation. For example, Modesto likely could have known from its unsuccessful offeror letter and/or a debriefing1 that even if GAO agreed that the VA’s technical evaluation was wrong, Modesto would join four other quoters that had already been rated as “technically acceptable.” And this was an LPTA solicitation: the “TA” portion was only half the battle; Modesto still needed to be the “LP” – that is, the lowest price.
What did GAO have to say? As usual, it started with some case law on protest fundamentals:
In a post-award context, our Office has generally found that a protester is an interested party to challenge an agency’s evaluation of proposals–or, as here, quotations–only where there is a reasonable possibility that the protester would be next in line for award if its protest were sustained. Sea Box, Inc., B-422234.4, June 13, 2024, 2024 CPD ¶ 140 at 3. Where, as here, there are intervening vendors that would be in line for the award even if the protester’s challenges were sustained, the intervening vendors have a greater interest in the procurement than the protester, and we generally consider the protester’s interest to be too remote to qualify it as an interested party. See NCS Techs., Inc., B416936, Jan. 11, 2019, 2019 CPD ¶ 56 at 3.
GAO then found, based on its review of the record, that there were three contractors (other than the awardee) that were already rated as technically acceptable, whose quotes contained prices that were lower than Modesto’s. Thus, even in the case that Modesto completely prevailed on every aspect of the protest that it filed, there were other quoters ahead of Modesto in line for an award. On this basis, GAO dismissed Modesto’s protest.
What could Modesto have done differently? Frankly, not a lot. And here’s why: to maintain Interested Party status, Modesto would have had to challenge not only the VA’s evaluation of the awardee’s quotation, but the VA’s evaluation of each of the three quoters next in line for an award. Thus, conceivably, having defeated all four evaluations of its competitors, and having shown that the VA’s evaluation of its own quote was also flawed, Modesto might reasonably have a chance of receiving the award in the end. A tall order, even in the best of circumstances.
Making matters even harder, the RFQ was for a fixed price contract, with no mandatory post-award debriefing and a relatively simple evaluation scheme overall. Having sparse and incomplete information to go on, forming allegations concerning the awardee and three other intervening quoters would have been next to impossible – after all, GAO’s pleading standards are a low bar, but they are a bar nonetheless (and perhaps that bar is in the process of being raised, see Warfighter Focused Logistics, Inc., B-423546,B-423546.2, https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423546%2Cb-423546.2 (last accessed October 21, 2025)). Based on the difficult task ahead of it, and the lack of information upon which to form protest allegations, Modesto might have been better served by simply skipping this one.
Every bid protest is different – different industries, different agencies, and different processes (not to mention, agency procurement personnel with differing levels of experience) – and it’s hard to map out a bid protest from unsuccessful offeror letter to sustain. One thing, though, is always the same: if you’re serious about protesting, consult an experienced bid-protest lawyer. Whether you decide to file away or just eat the loss and move to the next opportunity, you’ll be thankful you did.
1The subject RFQ was conducted under FAR Part 13, so debriefing was not mandatory. Though, it’s common for agency evaluation teams to provide an informal explanation of the award that resembles a debriefing but not does extend the deadline to protest. See 4 C.F.R. 21.2(a)(2) (ten-day filing deadline excepted for “protests challenging a procurement conducted on the basis of competitive proposals under which a debriefing is requested and, when requested, is required.”) (emphasis added). Perhaps if the VA was more forthcoming with its explanation for the award, Modesto might not have protested in the first place.
