This series of FAR summaries is meant to take a meaningful portion of the Federal Acquisition Regulations to ensure an easy-to-understand approach to maintain that readers comprehend the process of doing business with the government and that the government exercises a fair and reasonable approach to doing business with the general public.
FAR 14.304 Submission, Modification And Withdraw Of Bids
Bidders must do the bidding. The government’s rules of submission, modification and withdraw must be followed. The default time is 4:30 pm within the timezone of the office who advertised the opportunity on the designated due date. This isn’t like picking up dry cleaning. This is sealed bidding to help the federal government. Late bids won’t be accepted. Time stamps of submission are the deciding factor of acceptance unless your bid blows everybody else’s out of the water. Your Contracting Officer is given that much power. Emergencies automatically roll acceptance of bids to the next working day.
The CO has discretion. However, they must notify each late bidder if their submission was accepted or rejected.
Sealed Bidding is like Contestant’s Row on “the Price Is Right”. Like the game show it usually pertains to bidding on goods. Whereas two-step sealed bidding is used to buy services. You can liken that to the winning contestant with the closest bid to the actual retail price without going over playing and winning a pricing game to win something else because the first step is meeting technical requirements before the second step of price is even considered.
I used this process as Mayor to fix a water main. The highest bid was $23,000 higher than the winner. My council joked that my first decision as Mayor saved the city over $20,000. I just thanked them all for voting intelligently on the submitted bids to complete the project. When the city clerk asked the high bidder why his price was so much higher than everybody else’s he simply told her he had to feed his family and that he understood the scope of the project was excellence just like his company stood for for years and years and years.
If you think I can help you then email nicholas.s.robertson@outlook.com for your introductory email and free consultation.
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