snowe Posted July 25, 2013 Report Share Posted July 25, 2013 Company ABC was competitively awarded with the development and O&M of unique state-of-the-art system (assume contract number is 123). Years later, a portion on the O&M effort was de-scoped from the contract number 123 and the requirements were moved to another contracting office for administration under a different contract number (assume contract number 456) awarded to the same company as a sole source contract. We have an OCI policy states O&M personnel shall not participate in proposal development on related proposals. Furthermore, in order to participate in related proposal contractor personnel need to wait for a cool-off period because of potential OCI. If I have an ECP for a contract 123 that affects contract 456 (or vice versa), current policy will not allow the contractor to use the O&M personnel with system-unique expertise for proposal development because of potential / perception of OCI? Can this scenario construe a potential OCI in terms of biased assistance or advice or unfair competitive advantage even when is the same contractor performing the work? What am I missing from this? FAR 9.5 explain unfair competitive advantage and bias. The principles apply to sole source contract to the extent that the conflict created an unfair competitive advantage. Impaired objectivity is not an issue on a sole source. The OCI principles prevents the sole source contractor an unfair competitive advantage in future competition; which would be establishing the ground rules of a future competition the contractor intends to participate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Vern Edwards Posted July 25, 2013 Report Share Posted July 25, 2013 You say that you have received an engineering change proposal (ECP) from contractor ABC that is applicable to contract 123, which is for the development of a system. The contractor used its personnel who are involved in the operation and maintenance of the system under contract 456 when preparing the ECP. You want to know if the use of the O&M personnel constituted a competitive advantage OCI. Is that correct? In light of the fact that you are talking about a within-scope change applicable to a system under development, what kind of competitive advantage do you see? Who is the competition? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowe Posted July 26, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2013 I do not see a competitive advantage, but the people I work with firmly believe that O&M individuals working for the contractor could potentially provide biased assistance or advice on contract performance to the Government regarding the very program they just worked and that I should request for those individuals to be firewalled. Because the work is considered O&M (services) we should restrict those individuals for transferring between programs for proposal development on related efforts. I can see an issue if there is a competition and the incumbent helped with the development of requirements, which is not the case here. Overall, I am not sure what I am missing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retreadfed Posted July 26, 2013 Report Share Posted July 26, 2013 I'm not sure I fully understand your situation, but have you looked at FAR 9.505-2(a)(3). It may help you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FAR Fetched Posted August 5, 2013 Report Share Posted August 5, 2013 Where is there a competitive advantage? And for who? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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