Agencies frequently limit the scope of proposal revisions that can be made in response to a solicitation amendment, and often such restrictions are proper. However, where the amendment has material impacts on proposal strategy that go beyond the aspects of a proposal a bidder is permitted to revise, such limitations may be unreasonable. In this edition of the Bid Protest Beat, Partner Stephanie Wilson examines a pre-award bid protest where a protester succeeded in challenging the agency’s restrictions of proposal revisions in response to a solicitation amendment.
Owl International Inc., d/b/a Global, a 1st Flagship Company, B-423281.4, Apr 24, 2026
The United States Department of the Navy issued an RFP for an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract for management, maintenance, and operation of its ship salvage material system and support of its worldwide oil and hazardous substance spill response program. The RFP initially included FAR 52.222-46, which instructed offerors to include a “total compensation plan that set the proposed salaries and fringe benefits for professional employees working on the contract” in their cost/price proposals.
In response to a protest by Owl International Inc. (“Owl”) of an award to PCCI, Inc. (PCCI), the agency opted to take corrective actions while that re-evaluation was pending. The agency notified both PCCI and Owl that it would open discussions and soon amend the RFP by removing FAR 52.222-46 because it had concluded the RFP lacked “a meaningful amount of professional employees,” and therefore the provision was unnecessary. The agency also notified both offerors that they would only be able to revise their cost/price volumes in response to the amendment.
Owl challenged both actions in an agency-level protest on September 9, 2025, arguing that the Navy’s plan to remove FAR 52.222-46 was improper and that limiting revisions to the cost/price proposal was unreasonable. The agency denied Owl’s protest and issued Amendment 6 on January 6, 2026, formally removing FAR 52.222-46 and requesting final revised cost/price proposals by January 16, 2026.
Pre-Award Protest
On January 15, 2026, Owl filed a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) protest challenging, among other things, that the agency’s removal of FAR 52.222-46 was inconsistent with the requirements of FAR 22.1103 and that the agency unreasonably restricted offerors to revising only their cost/price proposals when the solicitation amendment had a material impact on the technical proposal as well.
GAO denied Owl’s protest challenging the agency’s removal of FAR 52.222-46 from the RFP, finding that the agency reasonably concluded that the RFP did not include the “meaningful numbers” of professional employees in the context of the agency’s requirement, where professional employees made up only 6% of the workforce.
However, GAO agreed with the protestor that the agency’s restrictions on revisions to their proposal following removal of FAR 52.222-46 was unreasonable. FAR 52.222-46 included clear instructions for offerors to provide a “total compensation plan that set the proposed salaries and fringe benefits for professional employees working on the contract.” The technical volumes included a requirement “to address management of key and non-key personnel attrition, qualifications and commitment of key personnel, managing the engineering workforce to retain senior staff and recruit less experienced staff, and more broadly the approach to recruiting, retaining, training, and ensuring availability of quality personnel.”
The RFP also “[directed] each offeror to ensure that its technical proposal [was] consistent with its cost/price proposal, otherwise the proposal may be rejected.” This language remained unchanged following the issuance of the amendment removing FAR 52.222-46. GAO determined that, by changing the offeror’s cost/price requirements that were tied to their staffing and management strategies that were outlined in the technical proposals, the agency errored by restricting the offerors from submitting updated technical volumes. GAO sustained Owl’s protest and recommended that the agency request final proposal revisions from both offerors without that restriction.
What Can Government Contractors Learn From This?
Owl’s argument that the agency unfairly restricted it from updating anything other than the cost/price volume in response to Amendment 6 was successful because the amendment impacted the proposal beyond that limited scope. By removing FAR 52.222-46 and its requirements related to staffing and management, the technical volume of the proposal was also affected. Additionally, the solicitation specifically noted that inconsistency between the cost/price and technical proposals was grounds for rejection.
Solicitations are frequently amended throughout the procurement process. Bidders should not only carefully review the amendments to understand what changes have been made to the solicitation, but also to assess whether an amendment that restricts proposal revisions has broader impacts on their proposals than initially meets the eye. If an amendment materially effects a bidder’s proposal beyond the areas where the agency has permitted proposal revisions, bidders should consider filing a pre-award protest challenging the reasonableness of that restriction.
Have questions about how your bid protest strategy can keep you ahead of the competition? Contact Stephanie Wilson at swilson@berenzweiglaw.com.
DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
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