Government Delay of Work

Government Delay of Work

Donna Prevatte

Instructor:  Professor Allen

Procurement and Contract Law

24 July 2011

To understand how a dispute or protest is handled by the Federal Government, a company or corporation needs to know the procedures and remedies. In general, the least formal, least expensive, and quickest of these choices of forums for pursuing a protest is the procuring agency itself (Feldman, 2009). So a company needs to first submit the issue to the agency performing the acceptance of the contract if they feel that they have been discriminated or otherwise not given fair treatment. If this process does not work then the company needs to take the next necessary steps to ensure that the protest or dispute is handled correctly.

First, a company needs to understand the definition of a protest which is a written objection by an interested party to a solicitation or cancellation or a solicitation, an award or proposed award of a contract, or the termination or cancellation of a contract award if the written objection alleges that the termination or cancellation is based on improprieties in the award of the contract (Feldman, 2009).

The procedures for a protest or dispute was implemented in 1995 by an Executive Order which the Federal Acquisition Regulation instructs all agencies to provide for the inexpensive, informal, procedurally simple, and expeditions resolutions of protests, including where appropriate, the use of alternative dispute resolution techniques, third-party neutrals, and another agency’s personnel (Feldman, 2009).

There are five types of alternative dispute resolutions and they are negotiation, mediation, collaboration law, conciliation, and arbitration. The alternative dispute resolution along with other existing legal systems can be utilized within common law jurisdictions such as in countries like United Kingdom.

There are also two historic types of alternative dispute resolutions....