Protecting the integrity of the acquisition is one of the contracting officer’s primary responsibilities.  The fact that DoD Source Selection Procedures require the Source Selection Plan to address the steps that will be taken to protect source selection and proprietary information highlights this importance.  Agencies and installations often times have rooms designated specifically for source selections with access limited by cypher locks or rekeyed doors accessible only be acquisition team members.  In fact, during my early years as a Contract Specialist, I executed a refurbishment project to a room which equipped it with over $100k in equipment geared specifically towards source selection evaluations and maintaining the integrity of each procurement.

However, despite even the best attempts to protect this information, instances do happen where proposal information or source selection information is disclosed to an unauthorized party.  Personally, I have witnessed occurrences where the shipping company mistakenly delivered proposal information to a government support contractor who then mistakenly opened the packages.  Perhaps the most infamous case I heard of happened during the Air Force Tanker acquisition when competing companies, Boeing and European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, were sent the other’s evaluation assessment during discussions.  This could have proven to be a costly mistake that provided grounds for a protest; however, the gravity of the mistake was recognized by all parties and efforts were taken to successfully mitigate any procurement integrity act violation and impacts to the procurement.

41 U.S.C. 2102(b) states that “a person shall not knowingly obtain contractor bid or proposal information or source selection information before the award of a Federal agency procurement contract to which the information relates.”  When evidence of a violation, or possible violation, is brought forth, the contracting officer must research the circumstances surrounding the occurrence and make a determination on the impacts to the integrity of the acquisition.  If the determination is that there is no impact, then concurrence at a higher level must be obtained in accordance with agency procedures.  For the Air Force this is the contract clearance approval authority, but with notice provided up through the Air Force Office of General Counsel.  If the determination is that there is an impact, then the Head of the Contract Authority (i.e. Senior acquisition officials) becomes involved. The take-away here is that all Agencies treat any such violation, or potential violation, seriously and they take steps to fully assess the potential impact.

For a PIA violation to occur the facts must be assessed to determine the intent of the action and whether it was done with malice.  For this reason, if you, or anyone in your company, comes in contact by accident with any information from a competitor, immediately minimize contact to the information and notify the contracting officer and then document, document, document.  Since the contracting officer is required to do an initial inquiry, the more proof you have that the information obtained was by accident and that it was contained, the more likely a determination can be made that there is not any impact to the acquisition.  It was these steps that helped save the tanker acquisition.  If there is an impact to the acquisition then it could mean cancellation of the solicitation, or if there was a PIA violation by one of the offerors, that offeror could be excluded from the acquisition or debarred.  Keep in mind that even if it is determined that a PIA violation did not occur, the released information could still have an effect on the procurement and steps must be taken to minimize the impact.

There will never be a sure proof way to protect your information once it has left your possession, but you can minimize its improper release by marking ALL sides of packages delivered that they are only to be opened by the intended recipient.   In addition, I recommend personally delivering packages to the contracting officer when feasible and, when not, require signature upon receipt when using a shipping service.  At the end of the day a PIA violation, or potential violation, is an inherent risk in all acquisitions.  Therefore, always take steps in minimize the chances of it happening to your information and take steps to protect your company in the event the information is accidently released to you or one of your employees.