Updated August 1, 2025
The Court’s comprehensive denial decision for this protest action has been posted.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA” or “Agency”) awarded a $316 million contract for IT services to Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. (“BAH”). Plaintiff, TISTA Science and Technology Corporation (“TISTA”), challenges the VA’s contract award decision on two grounds: (1) BAH has an unmitigated organizational conflict of interest (“OCI”) that precludes the VA from awarding BAH the contract; and (2) the VA’s evaluation of TISTA’s proposal was flawed to the point of being arbitrary and capricious.
For the reasons explained below, TISTA fails to meet its burden. This is not the type of case where this Court is asked to evaluate the facts against some binary standard (e.g., where the plaintiff argues that it was prejudiced because the government failed to perform some mandatory analysis); or where the government reached a conclusion that is unsupported by the administrative record. Instead, TISTA asks this Court to reach different conclusions than the Agency based on facts it found that are supported by the administrative record. At the end of the day, this is precisely the sort of uphill battle protest that seldom prevails. It is not impossible for such a challenge to succeed, of course, but given the deferential standard of review, this Court cannot conclude in this case either that the VA’s factual findings are unsupported or that its discretionary assessments were irrational.
Updated July 24, 2025
A major hurdle appears to have been cleared in relation to this high-profile Department of Veterans Affairs transformation support contract.
Word came own earlier today that the courts are siding with VA – a judgment has been entered in favor of VA and Booz Allen Hamilton. You can expect a formal announcement out soon.
Related
Booz Allen Hamilton beats out 7 to win $317M VA Transformation Support Services 2.0 contract
Updated March 31, 2025
As we inch closer to some type of decision by the Courts, we share below a bit more detail as to the grounds for the challenge of this high-profile Department of Veterans Affairs transformation support contract.
The Arguments are expected to be made next week to the Courts, with a decision to follow sometime after.
While heavily redacted, some of the Arguments made by TISTA
Significantly, BAH has an impaired objectivity organizational conflict of interest (“OCI”). Not only did the Government fail to take action to protect the integrity of the procurement, the VA also intentionally ignored findings from its own officials identifying the potential OCI. The record shows that the Agency assumed Government decision-making and an OCI mitigation plan would solve the problem. Neither rationale withstands scrutiny. The fact that the Government will make final decisions does not cleanse the bias from BAH’s advice. Indeed, precedent confirms that Government decision-making alone is insufficient to neutralize an impaired objectivity OCI.
Moreover, the VA misevaluated proposals in three respects. First, the Agency unreasonably credited only BAH for a performance approach that TISTA also proposed.
Relevant here, the Solicitation explained that because the contractor support encompassed “systems engineering, technical direction, remediation and IT support services, some restrictions on future activities of the awardee may be required” to neutralize any OCI. Elsewhere the Solicitation’s OCI provision emphasized that “potentially significant organizational conflicts of interest may arise, or have arisen, due to the nature of the work the Contractor will perform under, or has performed in preparation for solicitation of, this contract that may preclude the Contractor from being awarded this and/or future [OIS] support contracts in a related area.”
Beyond the disparate treatment, the VA assigned a weakness to TISTA’s proposal that makes little sense rendering it arbitrary and capricious. And the [redacted word] assigned to TISTA’s Technical proposal does not square with the evaluation findings.
These errors infected the Agency’s source selection decision. Had the selection authority been presented with an accurate depiction of the strength of TISTA’s proposal, there is a substantial chance that the Agency would have deemed TISTA’s lower-priced proposal the best value to the Government. Moreover, an award to BAH without meaningful consideration of the impaired objectivity OCI was itself arbitrary and capricious.
The ask from TISTA
In addition to declaratory judgment in its favor, TISTA is entitled to injunctive relief. The Court should issue a permanent injunction requiring the VA to reassess BAH’s OCI and reevaluate proposals in accordance with the Solicitation and procurement law, resulting in a new award determination. Should the new award go to TISTA, the VA must expeditiously wind down its task order with BAH and turn to TISTA to fill the VA’s TSS 2.0 requirements.
Now that Booz Allen Hamilton has seen the full complaint and set of issues raised, they will have their chance to address the concerns put forth.
More to be shared as it is made available.
Updated February 4, 2025
Limited details have been shared publicly, but TISTA is challenging the Department of Veterans Affairs Technology Acquisition Center’s (“TAC”), award of the Transformation Support Services 2.0 (TSS 2.0) task order under Request for Proposals No. 36Cl0B24Q0626 to Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH). It appears is its stance is that VA arbitrarily and capriciously evaluated TISTA’s technical proposal and unreasonably determined that BAH’s proposal represented the best value to the Government despite its more than $16 million price premium.
According to TISTA, the record shows that its response demonstrated a clear understanding of the requirements … and proposed a comprehensive, realistic approach to meeting the VA’s requirements. It appears that VA identified a weakness in the proposed solution that TISTA believes is based on a flawed and unreasonable interpretation of TISTA’s proposal and that is arbitrary and capricious and does not withstand scrutiny.
They will have a chance to make their case. More will be shared as it is made available.
Updated January 28, 2025
We share the latest updates and related timing for those following this Veterans Affairs requirement closely.
Booz Allen and TISTA have agreed upon a schedule which indicates that, barring the agency agreeing to take corrective action, the courts will not hear this case until April at the earliest.
More will be shared in the weeks ahead – more to follow.
Added January 20, 2025
When you win a lot, you draw a lot of challenges. Details are limited, but we share below a new battle that threatens to derail a recent win.
TISTA has filed a protest with the Court of Federal Claims challenging a recent award under Solicitation No. 36C10B24Q0626 issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs,
Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics, Technology Acquisition Center.
Booz Allen, as the awardee, has asked to intervene as they have an interest relating to the subject matter of this action and as they want to ensure their ability to protect its interest and no existing party (protestor or government) to this protest adequately represents their interest. This action should be approved.
No details were provided as to the grounds for the challenge. More will be shared in the days ahead.
