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Merger--Both Companies Hold the Same IDIQ


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My company purchased another large company; both companies held several IDIQ's issued by the same agencies for the same work. Through the novation process, the Contracting Officers allowed retention of one of the two IDIQ's and ceased issuing task orders under the other. I understand that the CO has full authority to accept or reject a novation. The question though is whether one company can hold two IDIQ awards (while all other awardees have one contract). I'm asking the question because of internal strife and resistance to the CO's decision on one contract. I'm hoping to settle the issues clearly. I have the anti-assignment statutes, but wondered if anyone knew of any other regulation, prohibiting the award of multiple contracts to different divisions of the same company, perhaps based on the competition regulations. So hypothetically, could a company with multiple divisions win multiple awards under the same umbrella contract? I hope that's clear. Thanks for your assistance.

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It happened under the old GSA Millennia contract - originally awarded to 12 vendors but mergers and acquisitions reduced that field to 8. Has probably also happened on Alliant since the award was made but am not sure. Try the GSA GWAC office or the GSA Schedules folks - you know that it has happened there

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Did GSA allow a company to hold more than one of those awards or did they require the new companies to reduce to one contract vehicle each? Thanks very much for your answer. Also, do you know if it has ever happened with the Air Force?

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Did GSA allow a company to hold more than one of those awards or did they require the new companies to reduce to one contract vehicle each?

A little bit of both in our experience. After we merged we were allowed to keep the schedules until the PoP expired. Then we were required to consolidate into one vehicle/bidding entity as they came due for option extensions.

However, IIRC, we had to novate the incoming company schedule to a version of our name.

At one time, we had 3 GSA IT-70 schedules... :o

Edit- Here's another sample of how GSA treats multiple contracts: http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/227585

"GSA encourages contractors who have more than one MOBIS contract as a result of the merger to select one MOBIS contract to continue and allow the other to expire. The best time to make this decision is near the end of the current contract period under the first of the two contracts that will expire.You can make this decision earlier if you choose to do so."

Might be worth a slight call to GSA to confirm the position is still the same.

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Guest Vern Edwards

The question though is whether one company can hold two IDIQ awards (while all other awardees have one contract). I'm asking the question because of internal strife and resistance to the CO's decision on one contract. I'm hoping to settle the issues clearly. I have the anti-assignment statutes, but wondered if anyone knew of any other regulation, prohibiting the award of multiple contracts to different divisions of the same company, perhaps based on the competition regulations. So hypothetically, could a company with multiple divisions win multiple awards under the same umbrella contract?

Interesting problem. I have not thought about this before.

Off the top of my head I do not know of any statute or regulation that expressly prohibits one company from having more than one contract under a multiple award vehicle. It seems to me that the matter is more one of common sense than law or regulation. What would be the point? I do not think that having more than one contract would increase the firm's chances of receiving an order. Even if a firm has only one contract it ought to be able to submit more than one proposal or quote in response to a solicitation for an order, i.e., alternate proposals or quotes, unless the CO prohibits them. If a firm has more than one contract and if the CO prohibits alternate proposals I don't think a company could get around the prohibition because it has more than one contract, since the company is one entity. So it is not clear to me what the advantage would be of holding more than one of the contracts.

Different divisions of the same company are another matter, much more complicated. I don't know of any law or regulation that says different divisions cannot hold contracts under a single multiple award vehicle. However, that would raise the specter of organizational conflicts of interest and manipulation of the bidding process to the detriment of competition.

If I were a CO I would not allow one company to hold more than one contract as a result of mergers. That would seem to be a needless administrative expense. As for different divisions of the same company, I'm not sure I could legally prohibit different divisions from holding contracts under a single multiple award vehicle, but I would follow the organizational conflict of interest procedures in FAR Subpart 9.5 and be on the lookout for collusive bidding practices.

All bets are off if you're talking about GSA FSS contracts, since that program is looney and I'm not sure there are any rules or common sense.

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