If you exercise an option year, and specifically state that certain CLINs in that option year will not be exercised, can you then go back at a later date and exercise those CLINs?

what is your contract included language?

First - Does the contract allow selective exercise of CLINS in an option? Are they severable (e.g., do not bear a share of spread fixed or one time costs)?

21 hours ago, KAW318 said:

If you exercise an option year, and specifically state that certain CLINs in that option year will not be exercised, can you then go back at a later date and exercise those CLINs?

Anything is possible especially if the Government and contractor are in agreement in doing so but such a action comes with risks that need to be acknowledged.

Already mentioned but stated another way is does the contract allow for exercise of option for only certain CLINS? If not just remember option exercise is a unilateral right of the government, you and the contractor might agree in concept but what happens if the contractor later proclaims the governments unilateral right to pick and choose CLINS was not expressed in the contract and disputes the exercise of the later CLINS, then what?

If selective exercise allowance is not expressed in the contract is there an issue about what I will call scope of the competition. By example if other offerors knew such a strategy was going to be taken could their offers have been different? Or in otherwords risk of protest after award at exercise of option picking slective CLINS.

Again if the allowance to do so is not expressed in the contract could the governments attempt to exercise only certian CLINS be considered a constructive partial termination for convenience?

Or better yet if the unitlateral right is not retained for the later CLINS, again by contract language, then what? Bilateral modification? Is it then a sole source? And does the 360 begin on considerations of the scope of competition, etc.?

Anything is possible but is it something one can or should do as dictated by contract language? While not perfectly on point here is a contract dispute decision (see link) that might give you pause to consider how you might move forward. This paragraph from the decision sums it up well....

"The question presented by the parties is straightforward: Whether the government can extend a contractor’s performance under FAR 52.217-8 after an ineffective attempt to exercise an option year. The answer is also straightforward: No. As a result of the government’s failure to properly exercise the option year, the contract expired. The language of FAR 52.217-8 incorporated here does not provide a mechanism to resurrect the parties’ obligations under an expired contract."

https://www.asbca.mil/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=O6zMmetBDs8%3D&portalid=143