Post-Award Protest

A post-award protest is a challenge filed after contract award, objecting to the source selection decision or award process. Post-award protests typically allege evaluation errors, failure to follow stated evaluation criteria, unequal treatment of offerors, or improper best value tradeoff analysis. To be timely at GAO, post-award protests must be filed within 10 days after contract award or 10 days after the debriefing if a debriefing is requested. Timely post-award protests at GAO trigger the CICA automatic stay preventing contract performance. Post-award protests may also challenge procurement actions that occurred before award but were not known until after award. Successful post-award protests may result in termination of the awarded contract and reevaluation or resolicitation.