Biggest Contract Wins Come With Expectation of a Loser’s Protest

Bid protests at the Government Accountability Office have shrunk by almost a third over the last decade, while the effectiveness of protests has jumped.

General Dynamics Information Technology lost its protest June 15 of an IT modernization contract award to Leidos, but taking a shot at $11.5 billion was not unexpected.

Jay Carey, a government contracts lawyer at Covington & Burling, who’s won a collective $100 billion on bid protests, said, “Generally, anytime that you get one of these contracts that is in the tens of billions of dollars, it is very, very likely to be protested.”

Jeff Bezos, whom ...