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Construction Law Blog - Construction Bidding

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Posted By: John P. Ahlers | Oct 09, 2009 | Topics: Construction Bidding, Construction News and Notes, Rants and Raves | View Article

Are Bidders Choosing to "Bomb" Project Pricing?

According to a recent ENR article, if all bidders have experienced estimators and costs of materials and efficiencies of bidders are the same, the variances in bids should be very small. Nevertheless, as of late, bid tabulations are showing significant variances, the explanation offered for these variances are mistakes in bids, missing amendments, takeoffs or subcontractors' quotes, or the company owners have decided to bid the work at or below cost to keep work coming in or generate cash flow. Qualified bidders are losing projects to bad business managers and poor bidders are ruining the markets for the competent bidders. "What the industry is facing today is complicated by having too many bidders either making mistakes in bides or poorly managing their businesses."

To read the article click here



Posted By: Ryan Sternoff | Jun 26, 2008 | Topics: Construction Bidding, Government Contracts | View Article

Redacted GAO Decision on Boeing Protest

Further to the June 18, 2008 post, GAO Sustains Boeing Bid Protest of Massive Air Force Contract, the United States Government Accountability Office has released the full, redacted, decision on the Boeing protest, which can be found here.   

While this was certainly the World Series of bid protests, as noted in the previous posting, the process undertaken by Boeing and its team of attorneys is the same required by construction contractors in their protests of most federal procurements.



Posted By: Ryan Sternoff | Jun 18, 2008 | Topics: Construction Bidding, Government Contracts | View Article

GAO Sustains Boeing Bid Protest of Massive Air Force Contract

Today, the United States Government Accountability Office ("GAO") upheld the bid protest of The Boeing Company ("Boeing") of the award of a $35 billion tanker contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. and European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co ("EADS").   The award of the massive government contract to the group which includes European based EADS had been widely criticized by lawmakers and patriots alike. 

Posted By: John P. Ahlers | Apr 24, 2008 | Topics: Construction Bidding | View Article

ALASKA PUBLIC AGENCY ACTED WITHIN ITS AUTHORITY IN SPECIFYING EQUIPMENT WHICH EXCLUDED THE CONTRACTOR FROM THE BIDDING PROCESS

The Alaska Energy Authority ("AEA") is a public state agency which provides technical support to hundreds of Alaskan villages located off the electrical grid that produce and distribute their own energy needs. The AEA sought to upgrade the utilities in the native villages by installing new switch gear. The standard switch gear or "computer brain" operating switch gear is a programmable logic controller ("PLC"). A contractor bidding on the project, an Alaska subsidiary of an Australian firm, manufactured an alternative switch gear which ran off a personal computer ("PC"). For PC-based switch gear is used in Australia, but has never been used in the United States.

Feb 27, 2008 | Topics: Construction Bidding | View Article

General Contractor’s Failure to Send Subcontractor a Subcontract Which Met the Terms of the Subcontractor’s Quotation, Prevented the General Contractor From Recovering Under Promissory Estoppel

The general rule in construction contracts is that if a prime contractor relies upon a subcontractor's bid, and incorporates the subcontractor's quote in its bid to the owner, the subcontractor may not withdraw its bid for a reasonable period of time after the prime contractor's bid has been accepted by the owner.

In a case in Georgia, the general contractor (APAC) incorporated a subcontractor's (Coastal) bid to perform drill shaft foundation work into its bid to the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT).

After APAC had signed a prime contract with GDOT, APAC submitted a written subcontract to Coastal that contained terms and conditions different than those in the subcontractor's bid (the general contractor sought to assign the risk of delay and subsurface conditions to the subcontractor).  The subcontractor refused to sign the subcontract.  APAC filed a lawsuit against Coastal alleging "promissory estoppel" asserting Coastal knew it would be expected to enter into an APAC standard subcontract, the terms of which would differ from the Coastal bid terms.