present status of the contract that arose from the two thousand and eighteen solicitation it is my understanding that is being formed at least possibly bridge contract formed by the award so the support so the contract is being performed correct now what would you have us do leaving aside whether the case supports a ruling in your favor what well what are you looking for here at the end of the day what the or me to be required to terminate that contract and do what would like to have that contract but that would mean the army would have to turn to mate to terminate the contract with this is answerable am i pronouncing it correctly cancel cancel i believe have to terminate that contract right correct if it's on a blanket contract which i i'm not sure that it is that process is a bit easier than if it is actually in an option year because when protest out for d certain periods of time and waiting for the protest to conclude i do not know that if that is the case with and you can find out from the government let me ask you one other thing i gather your main contention hears i sens is that the four people who were in front of your client in the final cut you're saying that their dollar figures didn't meet the requirements because they didn't take with in line with the the the independent government cost estimate no where is the requirement in your view that there had to be this is price escalation in to take into account option years only in terms of the contract or any of the provisions of the far that were incorporated by reference into the contract where to what do you point and say there's nothing that says they the contractors that compensation really isn't would be done on their professional wage rates and in that it tells them that their rates need to be adequate for to ok and section d that far fifty two to one hundred and eighty seven basically is that the government reserves the right to exercise auctioneer's so it is telling the contractor that lead anyone to infer from the terms of this provision and i guess fifty to dash two to two days for six that there had been some kind of an escalation in the option years as basically what you're saying in our determination of this case in other words what role do you say the twenty six d solicitation and everything that happened there place which should play in connection with our determination of this case we can point to that it's unfortunately correct it is not it is not in the i understand in the senate that is it in the record it is in the record in the so i'm sorry you know you've got time if you want to use them but i just wanted to explain the the wage rate disparity that you mentioned twelve dollars i mean this is purely theoretical on our part but a ll service contracts with the government require a wage rate specifically from the department of labor or in this case from the department of finance and they released that this is the one your follow up discussion with judge wallach assuming what you say is correct you're basically saying this was a provision in the contract the two thousand and sixteen solicitation transaction so to speak frame this contract yet you have to have provisions in the contract and there's nothing in the contract that sort of gives you what you want i think you're talking about the background of the two  solicitation and everything you say may be true but i don't think it helps you because what you're asking for doesn't seem to be in the contract what we're asking for what we're spector well  escalation cause and the what you were just talking about but then that that also goes to the relationship between the contractors and contracting officers and being being real be confident to rely on what you're told in a debriefing or so you're saying what you were told you're saying you were told things in the two thousand and sixteen solicitation for say but it would form a part of how the contractor understands how the source election authority was going to valuate the contract or evaluate the switch station i put i maybe i misunderstood i'm not here to help you out or make your case for you but i thought in addition to just relying on what happened in two thousand and sixteen you also relying on this far provision that i think you cited this morning which would govern this contract as well clear of deals with considering the impact recruitment and retention but does but it does just judge sauls specifically said it doesn't specifically say that there is an escalation causing a clause in there what we're saying is that clause is meant to tell the tell the contractor that they need to take care of the back end of their contract when their pricing ok finally hear from the government to lowest price technically acceptable it removed to the phrase real as a requirement and instead added a minimum wage rate and as the trial court found that appendix page for the minimum wage rate was added  just have some preliminary questions i haven't been on that many of these contract cases and so it's just my own edification this is only about standing jurisdictional it's only about standing right that's correct i'm a little confused between what we look for them and with what is necessary to establish the court of federal claims i think correctly said is according to the government because for other technically acceptable proposals were lower than that of s ridge and estrogens allegations would not undermine those lower beds the army presumably would award the contractor someone else we're not looking at the merits of his allegations in the standing phase right i mean i think my classic standing case is some guy who's had two employees who's never done any contracting work challenges a contract and it's true that the government may have done some stuff wrong with the contract but there's no chance of him ever having gotten a contract anyway that's the standing inquiry that it doesn't go to the merits of his allegations it really goes and so let me just make my argument to you and then you can respond so it seems to me is there not an argument here if you want you can lob almost forgot for other contractors that did the bids that are above him and say yeah they didn't in the out years increase the salaries have light and light you had to have the ability to a license in the state of mississippi and that was a requirement so there could have been ten people who had a cheaper bid than me but if none of them had licenses and i have a challenge that argues that they shouldn't what does it matter whether they're for with lower prices so whatever if if his challenge if he were successful on the merits of his allegations that would not go one it would not go for it would no forty right well your honor the as great as the th in line needs to show that the all that all four of the lower rated me make the same i mean his allegations if there were correct and i don't have any  would apply to all four equally he's the only one that had subsequent years we're off was offering an increase in the wages and none of them did that so why can't they be put in a bucket and if he were to win which he likely will not but if he were to and all of those guys would come out well actually under that that's just factually not accurate that the other are whores didn't in fact increase in the option years and in fact the agency is not only noted that the offer is increase but evaluated the compensation relisten to include whether the offer is isolated and the action ears and i can give you some examples from the record to offer or is offering to and offer five were found to be the page at appendix page eight hundred and forty seven and now they're into the option yes or ok and to go back to would judge throws a question about whether it's really simply looking at the allegations versus looking at the pages contains the agency's evaluation of whether the prices were fair and reasonable or whether they were too high and this is the only point during the the source lection decision which the agency discusses the i points to a price and now this is under fifteen dollars for four which determines if they cannot come to a a understanding of price reasonable say have to do a price we'll assume whether that was done or not i  there was an escalation done in each year but argument or eskridge his argument was that the the incremental increases were not high enough to sustain