4K Global-ACC JV, LLC (B-423092.2)

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Category: Reconsideration, project labor agreement

Date: 11 April 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423092.2

4K Global-ACC JV, LLC, a small business in Augusta, Georgia, sought reconsideration of GAO’s denial of its protest concerning an Army Corps of Engineers RFP for building repair services. The original protest centered on the Corps’ rejection of 4K Global’s proposal due to a noncompliant project labor agreement (PLA), as required by FAR provisions 52.222-33 and 52.222-34. The Corps found that the PLA lacked any signatory labor organization and failed to bind subcontractors. 4K Global later argued that a Court of Federal Claims decision (MVL USA, Inc.) invalidated the executive order mandating PLAs and thus rendered GAO’s decision erroneous.

GAO dismissed the request for reconsideration, emphasizing that MVL USA was a preaward case with different procedural posture and contracts. The decision held that postaward objections to solicitation terms—such as 4K Global’s challenge to the PLA requirement—are untimely under GAO protest rules. Furthermore, the court's ruling was not retroactive or binding on GAO and applied only to the specific procurements in that litigation.

GAO dismissed the request for reconsideration and reaffirmed that the protest did not meet the standard for reconsideration, because it failed to identify a legal or factual error in the original decision. Legal shifts occurring after a GAO decision—even at the Court of Federal Claims—do not create grounds for reconsideration unless they reveal material errors in the protest’s original context.

Digest

Request for reconsideration is dismissed where the request, which is based on a holding in a U.S. Court of Federal Claims decision issued after our Office’s bid protest decision, does not show that the protest decision contains errors of fact or law that would warrant reversal or modification of the decision.