Case of the Month 2023 – November

Our Election Day (Tues., Nov. 7, 2023) PCI Case of the Month Club program will leave you wanting to vote in favor of more programs just like it.   Our experts Brian Walsh and Tracye Howard will discuss two recent—and important—decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  The first decision, SAGAM Securite Senegal v. United States, 2023 WL 6632915 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 12, 2023), a bid protest, involves the U.S. Department of State’s appeal from a Court of Federal Claims decision holding that the agency’s decision to cancel a solicitation and resolicit, after discovering that the agency had violated the Procurement Integrity Act while conducting the procurement, was arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.  We have not dealt with the Procurement Integrity Act much in our Case of the Month Club discussions, so this fact alone separates it from the pack.  The case is an excellent illustration of the difficult analysis an agency must go through when it discovers it has violated this statute in the course of a competitive procurement, and the harsh consequences of that violation might surprise you.

The second decision, ECC International Constructors, LLC v. Secretary of the Army, 79 F.4th 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2023), a Contract Disputes Act case, focuses on the question of whether the Federal Acquisition Regulation’s requirement that CDA claims state a “sum certain” is jurisdictional.  The facts here are important:  ECCI filed a $14 million claim in 2014.  It then went through six years of settlement discussions with the Corps of Engineers and a nine-day hearing on the merits before the ASBCA.  Three months after the hearing ended, but before the Board issued a decision, the Corps moved to dismiss ECCI’s claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the grounds that ECCI had failed to state a sum certain in its claim.  The ASBCA granted the Government’s motion and ECCI appealed.  Relying heavily on recent decisions by the Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit reversed the ASBCA’s decision, continuing its trend of the last few years.  The opinion is a tutorial on the concepts of jurisdiction and statutory construction, and it will guarantee an important and fascinating discussion by our experts.   Please join us on Election Day!

Because the Case of the Month Club will look at recent cases based on their importance to Government Contracting, we will set the class’s Topic several weeks prior to the program.  This will help keep the program fresh.

• Case of the Month
  First Tuesday of the Month, 12:00 pm-1:00 pm (ET)
  10 Monthly Sessions, from January to December
  • Session 1: (Recorded) Obsidian Sols. Grp. v. United States and MP Sols *Jan 3, 2023
  • Session 2: (Recorded) Tolliver Group, Inc. v. United States and System Studies & Simulation, Inc. v. United States *Feb 7, 2023
  • Session 3: (Recorded) Alan E. Fricke Memorials, Inc.  v. Dept. of Veterans Affairs and The Logistics Company, Inc. v. United States *Mar 7, 2023
  • Session 4: (Recorded) VSolvit, LLC and Wu & Associates v. General Services Administration *Apr 4, 2023
  • Session 5: (Recorded) Percipient.ai, Inc. v. United States & Dynamic Systems Technology Inc. *May 2, 2023
  • Session 6: (Recorded) Percipient.AI, Inc. v. United States, CACI, Inc.—Federal v. United States & FlightSafety International, Inc. *Jun 6, 2023
  • Session 7: (Recorded) KPMG, LLP v. United States and Deloitte & Touche, LLP, No. 22-866 and Adventus Technologies v. Dept. of Agriculture, CBCA 7283
    *Sep 5, 2023
  • Session 8: (Recorded) PAE Applied Technologies LLC, ASBCA No. 63233, 2023 WL 5827257 and U.S. and State of New Jersey et al v. Care Alternatives, 952 F.3d 89 (3rd Cir. 2020) *Oct 3, 2023
  • Session 9: SAGAM Securite Senegal v. United States, 2023 WL 6632915 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 12, 2023) and ECC International Constructors, LLC v. Secretary of the Army, 79 F.4th 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2023)  *Nov 7, 2023
  • Session 10 *Dec 5, 2023

Case of the Month Series 2023