Protests Based on Impaired Objectivity Organizational Conflict of Interests (“OCI”) Continue to Find Success at GAO

In Solutions71, LLC: B-423671.2, GAO sustained the third impaired objectivity OCI protest within the last six months. GAO’s decision in Solutions71 joins Castro & Company, LLC: B- 423689 and DirectViz Solutions, LLC:B- 423366; B-423366.3; B-423366.4 in what has become an increasingly successful protest ground.

What is an Impaired Objectivity OCI?

An impaired objectivity OCI occurs when a contractor cannot objectively provide advice to an agency because it stands to gain (or to make its competitors lose) from that advice. For instance, a contract might require a contractor to monitor or evaluate the performance of a task order, but the work being evaluated was (or still is) performed by that same contractor (or their affiliate) under a separate contract. The objectivity of the contractor to provide an honest assessment of the prior performance is immediately in question because they stand to gain from a positive evaluation.

Impaired objectivity OCIs, like all OCIs, are incredibly fact specific. Agencies can mitigate such an OCI in various ways. A review of the three most recent sustained protests on impaired objectivity sheds light on those factors contractors should be considering. One point from these cases is abundantly clear—GAO will not defer to an agency’s OCI investigation if that investigation does not involve an in-depth review of potentially conflicting contractual requirements.

Solutions71 Protest

On December 30, 2025, the Air Force (“USAF”) issued a Fair Opportunity Proposal Request (“FOPR”) under GSA’s STARS III GWAC. USAF sought various support services (help desk, data stewarding, etc.) for its geospatial operations mapping portal (“GEOMAP”). On June 9, 2025, USAF awarded an $18+M task order to DDC IT, a wholly owned subsidiary of Diné Source. Solutions71, immediately protested the award at GAO, alleging three separate OCI grounds. Because GSA issued the underlying IDIQ award, GAO properly had jurisdiction over the protest even though the task order amount was under the $35M threshold for challenging Department of War task order awards. In response to the protest, USAF took corrective action to investigate whether an OCI existed.

After investigation, USAF determined that DDC IT did not have an OCI that would prevent it from receiving a GEOMAP award. USAF again awarded a task order to DDC IT and Solutions71 renewed all three of its OCI protest grounds at GAO.

GAO denied two of Solutions71’s OCI grounds:

• Unfair Competitive Advantage– Solutions71 alleged that DDC IT had an unfair competitive advantage because it employed former USAF employees who had access to non-public information, e., Solutions71’s proposal for a separate GEOMAP procurement involving data migration. USAF determined there was no unfair competitive advantage because the information from the data migration procurement was not competitively useful in the sustainment services procurement. GAO found this determination reasonable.
• Unequal Access to Information– Solutions71 also alleged that DDC IT had access to non-public information regarding the sustainment requirement that other competitors did not via its parent affiliate, Diné Source. As background, Diné Source’s USAF contract required it to support the GEOMAP program, including developing the GEOMAP sustainment requirements. Diné Source participated in regular meetings and discussions regarding the GEOMAP sustainment requirement prior to release of the solicitation. However, GAO denied this protest ground, as there were no hard facts in the record supporting the notion that Diné Source employees actually shared information regarding the GEOMAP sustainment requirement with DDC IT or that Diné Source had taken part in writing the solicitation.

GAO sustained Solutions71’s protest as to:

• Impaired Objectivity– GAO sustained Solutions71’s impaired objectivity OCI protest ground. Specifically, GAO found USAF’s OCI investigation deficient as to whether it meaningfully considered Diné Source’s role in the larger GEOMAP program—e., its ability to review the work of DDC IT and provide recommendations to USAF on whether to accept that work. USAF had determined that no impaired objectivity OCI existed because Diné Source’s review of DDC IT’s code would be completed against standard (and thus objective) parameters. Further, an independent organization would ultimately test DDC IT’s code prior to release into the production environment.
• GAO found these arguments unavailing. At bottom, USAF’s investigation missed the point—it was of no consequence that an independent organization would test DDC IT’s code before release into the production environment or that DDC IT’s code would be reviewed against standard parameters. The real inquiry was whether Diné Source’s objectivity would be impaired by its relationship with DDC IT. And to that, GAO found that USAF’s investigation completely ignored Diné Source’s responsibilities underneath its GEOMAP contract and how those responsibilities related to the GEOMAP sustainment requirements under DDC IT’s task order. GAO’s line-by-line review of Diné Source’s contract revealed that it would be possible for Diné Source to recommend additional work and contractual adjustments that would potentially benefit its wholly owned subsidiary, DDC IT. Because USAF’s OCI investigation completely ignored Diné Source’s contractual responsibilities and the potential effects for DDC IT, it was ultimately unreasonable.

Castro & Company Protest

In November 2025, GAO sustained Castro & Company’s protest of a Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) contract award for financial management and accounting services. The protest challenged a $1.8 million contract awarded to Contracts Management Enterprises, LLC (“CME”) on the grounds of, among other things, an impaired objectivity OCI.

GAO agreed with Castro & Company. Specifically, GAO determined that the FEC failed to adequately investigate or document a potential Organizational Conflict of Interest (“OCI”) regarding CME’s impaired objectivity. The potential OCI arose because CME had a separate contract with FEC to provide procurement support—and was in fact providing those services to the same contracting officer acting as the source selection authority on the contested procurement.

The Contracting Officer’s Statement of Facts (“COS”) stated that FEC did consider the potential OCI and took steps to mitigate. Specifically, FEC created a firewall to ensure CME’s contractor was not involved with the contested procurement and had no access to proprietary or source selection information. The firewall included a requirement for offerors to send proposals directly to the contracting officer to bypass the FEC contractor. Those proposals were not to be stored on any shared drives until after award.

GAO, however, found no evidence in the agency report that supported the COS. As background, when a protest is filed at GAO, the agency must provide both a COS and a record that documents the agency’s contemporaneous award decision for the GAO attorney to review. Here, while the COS indicated the agency had investigated and mitigated the OCI, no documentation existed within the contemporaneous record to support that position. All that existed in the record was the contracting officer’s statement that they had considered the OCI and had mitigated it with the firewall. But there was no analysis of CME’s requirements under its procurement support contract and whether they would affect the contested procurement. Further, GAO questioned whether the mitigation employed by FEC would have any effect—firewalling CME from procurement data would mitigate an unequal access to information OCI but not an impaired objectivity OCI. The basis of the impaired objectivity OCI here would be the potential for CME to be involved with the administration of its own contract.  As such, GAO sustained the impaired objectivity OCI.

DirectViz Solutions Protest

On June 11, 2025, GAO sustained the protest of DirecViz Solutions as to an impaired objectivity OCI. In that protest, the Army’s Global Cyber Center (“GCC”) made a task order award to Peraton, Inc. (“Peraton”). GCC issued the task order off of its Computer Hardware Enterprise and Solutions Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-Services (“CHESS-ITESS”) IDIQ contract.

As background, Peraton had a task order to perform work for Army Cyber Command (“ARCYBER”) under the GSA’s OASIS IDIQ. DirectViz alleged that Peraton’s work on the ARCYBER contract put it in a competing role with respect to the work to be done for GCC under the CHESS-ITESS task order. GCC performed an OCI investigation which concluded that Peraton was “not authorized to structure policies for the GCC Government personnel on the ARCYBER Task Order” and “does not provide guidance/advice on how the GCC Task Order [contractor] handles its cyber operations”. As such, GCC found Peraton would not have impaired objectivity.

GAO disagreed with GCC’s OCI investigation and sustained the protest.

GAO’s reason for sustaining the protest was consistent with the determinations in Solutions71 and Castro & Company—the agency’s OCI investigation was cursory and failed to examine the actual contractual requirements between Peraton’s two task order awards. Rather than defer to GCC’s conclusion that impaired objectivity did not exist, GAO instead performed a requirements analysis of the ARCYBER task order against the requirements of the GCC task order. In doing so, GAO found several instances in which “a significant potential conflict of interest arises from Peraton’s competing roles under the ARCYBER and GCC task orders, which might impair Peraton’s objectivity in the performance of its obligations under the two task orders.”

For instance, Peraton ARCYBER task order called for it to help develop standard operating procedures and tactics that would trickle down to GCC. As such, Peraton had the means and the opportunity to skew GCC’s policies and procedures to align with Peraton’s capabilities on that task order. GAO found three other similar instances. At bottom, GAO found the very terms of the two task orders made it such that Peraton could not provide objective advice to either ARCYBER or GCC.

Takeaways for Contractors

Offerors should make sure their conflict checks encompass a review of any potential impaired objectivity OCIs. If a potential conflict exists, flag it for the government to see if a mitigation plan can be put in place. For disappointed offerors, make sure you know your competition. Does the new contract award conflict with an awardee’s capability to provide objective advice to the government?