On April 18, 2025, the United States Court of Federal Claims permanently enjoined the U.S. Army from awarding a contract to JP Logistics & Consulting, LLC (“JP Logistics”) for “logistics support services” at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, and ordered the Army to reevaluate proposals in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.306(c)(1). The protestor, Gemini Tech Services, LLC (“Gemini”), protested the award on the grounds that the Army improperly opened discussions by erroneously determining that all six initial offerors were within the competitive range by relying on incorrect facts and otherwise ignoring the terms of the Solicitation. Gemini took issue with the lack of analysis on how or why the offerors included in the Army’s competitive range were considered the most highly rated against the technical acceptability factor. 

In reinforcing that a contracting officer’s discretion to shape a competitive range is not unbounded, the court reasoned that the plain text of FAR 15.306(c)(1) creates an affirmative, non-discretionary duty to conduct a comparative assessment to determine which offers are “the most highly rated” before initiating discussions—a conclusory assertion that broader competition is “in the agency’s best interest” cannot substitute for the required contemporaneous record of that assessment.  The court also found that technical acceptability is not a fungible metric: a proposal with no path to acceptability at the outset cannot, by definition, occupy the same competitive echelon as proposals that are at least facially compliant.  That is, the Army’s inclusion of JP Logistics in the competitive range when its initial proposal indisputably fell short was an error of law, not merely an error of judgment.  Additionally, the court reasoned that because Gemini was next in line both in price and in satisfaction of the solicitation’s other material requirements, the improper competitive range determination tainted the procurement’s outcome.

POV: This decision reaffirms that competitive range determinations are critical gatekeeping functions and not mere administrative formalities—the contracting officer’s narrative must be more than an after-the-fact rationalization devised during litigation.  And the decision also supplies a protest roadmap for disappointed offerors: where an agency mechanically sweeps all initial offerors into the competitive range without documenting a disciplined ranking process, and particularly where inclusion of a fatally flawed proposal influences the ultimate award, there is a valid protest ground.