Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-19-01933/USCOURTS-ca13-19-01933-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 140
Nature of Suit: Negotiable Instruments
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________

INSERSO CORPORATION,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES,

Defendant-Appellee

FEDITC, LLC, RIVERSIDE ENGINEERING, LLC,

Defendants

______________________

2019-1933

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims 

in No. 1:18-cv-01655-LAS, Senior Judge Loren A. Smith.

______________________

Decided: June 15, 2020

______________________

RICHARD P. RECTOR, DLA Piper LLP (US), Washington, 

DC, for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by DAWN 

STERN; CARL BRADFORD JORGENSEN, Austin, TX. 

 ANTHONY F. SCHIAVETTI, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by JOSEPH H. HUNT, ROBERT EDWARD KIRSCHMAN,

JR., DOUGLAS K. MICKLE. 

 ______________________

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2 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

Before REYNA, MAYER, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge TARANTO.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge REYNA.

TARANTO, Circuit Judge.

The United States Defense Information Systems 

Agency (DISA), which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense, awarded contracts to multiple firms that bid for the 

opportunity to sell information technology services to various federal government agencies. Inserso Corporation unsuccessfully competed to be one of the firms awarded a 

contract. In an action filed against the United States in 

the Court of Federal Claims, Inserso alleged that DISA disclosed information to certain other bidders but not Inserso, 

giving the rival bidders an unfair competitive advantage. 

The Court of Federal Claims held that DISA’s disclosure 

did not prejudice Inserso in the competition and on that 

basis entered judgment in favor of the government. Inserso 

Corp. v. United States, 142 Fed. Cl. 678 (2019). 

We agree that judgment in favor of the government is 

appropriate, but on a different ground. We conclude that, 

because Inserso did not object to the solicitation when it 

was unreasonable to disregard the high likelihood of the 

disclosure at issue, Inserso forfeited its ability to challenge 

the solicitation in the Court of Federal Claims. We do not 

reach the prejudice portion of the court’s decision. We 

therefore vacate that decision and remand for the court to 

enter judgment consistent with this opinion.

I

On March 2, 2016, DISA publicly posted Solicitation 

No. HC1028-15-R-0030 (Encore III). The solicitation invited firms to bid for the opportunity to enter into indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts under which the 

awardees would provide information-technology services to 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 3

the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. The 

solicitation states that the contracts would involve fixedprice and cost-reimbursement task orders and that awards

of contracts would be made to offerors whose proposals provided the best value to the government and satisfied the 

evaluation criteria.

The solicitation lists three criteria for evaluating proposals: (1) the bidder’s technical/management approach, 

(2) the bidder’s past performance, and (3) cost/price information. For the evaluation of price, the solicitation states, 

DISA would calculate a “total proposed price” and a “total 

evaluated price.” J.A. 101918. The total proposed price 

would be calculated by applying government-estimated labor hours for each year of contract performance to each offeror’s proposed fixed-price and cost-reimbursement labor 

rates; in turn, the total evaluated price would be calculated 

by adjusting any cost-reimbursement rates that DISA determined were unrealistic. The proposals with the lowest 

total evaluated price would then be evaluated for compliance with the other terms of the solicitation.

DISA divided the Encore III competition into two competitions. One competition would award a “suite” of contracts in a “full and open” competition; the other would 

award a suite of contracts to small businesses. J.A. 101891. 

DISA anticipated awarding up to twenty contracts in each 

competition.

Importantly, the solicitation expressly states that 

small businesses could compete in both competitions but 

could receive only one award. J.A. 101892. The solicitation 

also provides that firms could compete through joint ventures or partnerships. J.A. 101907. Under those provisions, several firms that bid in the small-business 

competition in fact also competed in the full-and-open competition as part of joint ventures. Inserso competed only in 

the small-business competition.

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4 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

Bidders in both competitions submitted their proposals 

by October 21, 2016. But the timing of the two competitions quickly diverged. On November 2, 2017, DISA notified successful and unsuccessful bidders in the full-andopen competition of their award status. By November 8, 

2017, i.e., less than a week later, DISA completed the debriefing process by which it discloses certain details of the 

agency’s selection decision to winners and losers. See 48 

C.F.R. § 15.506.

DISA had not yet completed evaluating the proposals 

submitted in the separate small-business competition and 

was still communicating with bidders in that competition. 

By October 18, 2017, DISA had received responses to the 

first round of evaluation notices it had sent to small-business bidders. Even after November 2, 2017, DISA sent several more rounds of evaluation notices to small-business 

bidders. DISA did not request final proposal revisions from 

the small-business bidders until April 2018. See 48 C.F.R. 

§ 15.307. Ultimately, such bidders had until June 20, 2018, 

to submit their final revised proposals for the small-business competition.

DISA notified successful and unsuccessful bidders of 

its award decisions for the small-business suite on September 7, 2018. Inserso did not receive an award because its 

total evaluated price was the 23rd lowest in a competition 

for twenty slots. DISA attached a debriefing document to 

its notice to Inserso. The debriefing included—among 

other things—the total evaluated price for the twenty 

awardees and some previously undisclosed information on 

how DISA had evaluated the cost element of the proposals.

In response to its debriefing, Inserso sent follow-up 

communications to DISA. Inserso noted that several 

awardees in the small-business competition had also competed in the full-and-open competition as part of joint ventures or partnerships, and it asked whether those entities 

had received similarly detailed debriefings at the 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 5

conclusion of the full-and-open competition (in fall 2017). 

Inserso expressed concern that, if so, the earlier debriefing 

would have provided unequal information giving a competitive advantage to some of the bidders in the pending smallbusiness competition. In response, DISA stated that all 

unsuccessful bidders in both competitions were given similarly detailed information in their debriefings.

On September 12, 2018, Inserso filed a protest in the 

United States Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

See 4 C.F.R. §§ 21.1–21.2. On October 17, 2018, GAO dismissed Inserso’s protest because another party was challenging the same solicitation at the Court of Federal 

Claims. See id., § 21.11(b). 

On October 25, 2018, Inserso filed its own complaint in 

the Court of Federal Claims, alleging that the full-andopen debriefing gave certain offerors in the small-business 

competition a competitive advantage by providing them, 

but not other bidders, the total evaluated price for all fulland-open awardees and previously undisclosed information regarding DISA’s evaluation methodology. Inserso 

alleged that this unequal provision of information created 

an organizational conflict of interest in violation of 48 

C.F.R. §§ 9.504, 9.505 and, in addition, violated at least one 

regulation specifically addressed to disparate treatment of 

bidders, 48 C.F.R. § 1.602-2(b). Inserso moved for judgment on the administrative record, and the government opposed Inserso’s motion and cross-moved for judgment on 

the administrative record.

The Court of Federal Claims ruled in favor of the government. Without definitively finding a violation, the court 

recognized that the challenged disclosure of information 

might have violated the identified regulatory standards, 

stating in particular that the total evaluated prices of the 

winners of the full-and-open competition “provided a useful 

comparison tool that [small-business-competition] offerors 

could utilize as a benchmark in revising their price 

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6 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

proposals.” Inserso, 142 Fed. Cl. at 684. The court also 

stated that “[p]rejudice is presumed once a potentially significant [organizational conflict of interest] is identified.” 

Id. Here, however, the court concluded, the government 

demonstrated lack of prejudice to Inserso, a conclusion that 

defeated Inserso’s claim as to both sets of regulations at 

issue. Id. at 684–85. The court entered judgment on 

April 2, 2019. J.A. 6.

Inserso timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).

II

On appeal, Inserso argues that the Court of Federal 

Claims erred in its treatment of the presumption of prejudice, including in its determination that the government 

rebutted such a presumption. Inserso also argues that, 

even apart from a presumption of prejudice, it was entitled 

to a finding that it was prejudiced by the challenged unequal disclosure. The government—in addition to defending 

the trial court’s analysis—argues in this court, as it did in 

the trial court, that Inserso forfeited its right to challenge 

DISA’s disclosure by not raising the issue in a timely manner.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b), the Court of Federal Claims 

has “jurisdiction to render judgment on an action by an interested party objecting to” a solicitation or contract award 

made by a federal agency. We review the Court of Federal 

Claims’ legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings 

for clear error. Daewoo Eng’g & Constr. Co. v. United 

States, 557 F.3d 1332, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2009). “When making a prejudice analysis in the first instance, [the Court of 

Federal Claims] is required to make factual findings.” 

Bannum, Inc. v. United States, 404 F.3d 1346,1357 (Fed. 

Cir. 2005). Whether the court applied the appropriate legal 

standard to its factual findings is a question of law. See 

Shell Oil Co. v. United States, 688 F.3d 1376, 1381 

(Fed. Cir. 2012). 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 7

A

Inserso alleges that DISA violated two sets of regulations that are part of the Federal Acquisition Regulation 

(FAR). First, it alleges that DISA violated FAR subpart 

9.5, which directs contracting officers to avoid, neutralize, 

or mitigate “organizational conflicts of interest.” 48 C.F.R. 

§ 9.505. Section 9.505 describes the dual aims of

“[p]reventing the existence of conflicting roles that might 

bias a contractor’s judgment” and “[p]reventing unfair competitive advantage.” Id., § 9.505(a), (b). An unfair competitive advantage can exist when a contractor possesses 

“[p]roprietary information that was obtained from a Government official without proper authorization” or “[s]ource 

selection information (as defined in [48 C.F.R. §] 2.101) 

that is relevant to the contract but is not available to all 

competitors, and such information would assist that contractor in obtaining the contract.” Id., § 9.505(b). Second, 

Inserso alleges that DISA failed to treat it fairly and 

equally, as required by several provisions of the FAR. See, 

e.g., id., §§ 1.102(b)(3), 1.602-2(b), 3.101-1.

Both of Inserso’s regulatory arguments arise from the 

same underlying DISA action, having the same alleged 

wrongful effect on the small-business competition. Specifically, both arguments challenge the disclosure of certain 

information to firms that (directly or through partnerships 

or joint ventures) bid for the full-and-open suite of contracts when some of those firms (directly or through partnerships or joint ventures) were still preparing bids for the 

small-business suite. Because “the scope of work and evaluation factors are nearly identical for each suite,” Inserso, 

142 Fed. Cl. at 684, and the information was relevant to 

the evaluation of bids, Inserso alleges, DISA’s failure to disclose that same information to all bidders in the small-business competition gave those bidders with the information 

an unfair competitive advantage. 

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8 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

Inserso focuses on two categories of disclosed information: (1) the total evaluated prices of those firms which 

won contracts in the full-and-open competition; and (2) details of how DISA evaluated the costs built into the proposals made by bidders in that competition. Inserso

contends, and the trial court recognized, that knowledge of 

the winning total evaluated prices from the full-and-open 

competition would provide a small-business-competition 

bidder a target range in which it could be confident that it 

would win an award. Inserso also contends that the costevaluation information would have been useful to a smallbusiness-competition bidder who was considering how to 

reduce the price of its bid in a way that DISA would find 

acceptable.

Inserso, however, did not object to the disparity in provision of competitively advantageous information until after the awards were made in the small-business 

competition. We conclude that, by waiting until the awards 

were made, Inserso forfeited the objection.

B

In Blue & Gold Fleet, L.P. v. United States, we held that 

“a party who has the opportunity to object to the terms of a 

government solicitation containing a patent error and fails 

to do so prior to the close of the bidding process waives its 

ability to raise the same objection subsequently in a bid 

protest action in the Court of Federal Claims.” 492 F.3d 

1308, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2007). We have since held that this 

reasoning “applies to all situations in which the protesting 

party had the opportunity to challenge a solicitation before 

the award and failed to do so.” COMINT Systems Corp. v. 

United States, 700 F.3d 1377, 1382 (Fed. Cir. 2012). The 

Court of Federal Claims has correctly applied this rule in 

organizational-conflict-of-interest cases, including cases 

dealing with the disclosure of pricing information during 

debriefing. See Ceres Envtl. Services, Inc. v. United States, 

97 Fed. Cl. 277, 310 (2011). 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 9

A defect in a solicitation is patent if it is an obvious 

omission, inconsistency, or discrepancy of significance. Per 

Aarsleff A/S v. United States, 829 F.3d 1303, 1312 

(Fed. Cir. 2016). Additionally, a defect is patent if it could 

have been discovered by reasonable and customary care. 

Id. at 1313; see also K-Con, Inc. v. Secretary of Army, 908 

F.3d 719, 722 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (“A patent ambiguity is present when the contract contains facially inconsistent provisions that would place a reasonable contractor on notice.”). 

“Whether an ambiguity or defect is patent is an issue of law 

reviewed de novo.” Per Aarsleff, 829 F.3d at 1312.1

1 The dissent, but not Inserso, suggests that this 

court’s Blue & Gold line of authority has been superseded 

by the Supreme Court’s decision in SCA Hygiene Products 

Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, 137 S. Ct. 

954 (2017). We do not read SCA Hygiene as having the 

broad implication that the dissent suggests but rather as 

holding only that the general non-statutory equitable timeliness doctrine of laches does not override the congressionally enacted statute of limitations applicable to legal 

actions for damages. 137 S. Ct. at 959–67. Blue & Gold, 

in contrast, establishes a “waiver rule” under a specific 

statutory authorization—the congressional command that 

bid-protest jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b) be exercised with “due regard to the . . . need for expeditious resolution of the action,” 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(3)—with support 

from longstanding substantive contract law and from regulations under a related statutory regime specific to bid 

protests. See Blue & Gold, 492 F.3d at 1313–14 (discussing 

“patent ambiguity” and “contra proferentem” doctrines and 

General Accountability Office regulations).

The dissent also suggests that we refrain from ruling 

on the Blue & Gold issue. But Inserso does not dispute that 

the issue was raised in the trial court, and it is an issue of 

law that we see no impediment to resolving ourselves.

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10 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

C

Those principles defeat Inserso’s claims. Inserso 

should have challenged the solicitation before the competition concluded because it knew, or should have known, that 

DISA would disclose information to the bidders in the fulland-open competition at the time of, and shortly after, the 

notification of awards. Inserso knew that the Encore III 

solicitation process was divided into two competitions and 

that small businesses could compete for both suites, either 

individually or as part of a joint venture or partnership. 

J.A. 101907. It is undisputed that Inserso knew that the 

full-and-open competition had been completed in November 2017. See Appellee Br. 41; see also Encore III Full & 

Open, Sam.gov, https://beta.sam.gov/opp/96e2d2943ebc

322905ebf27cf711e158/view#award (noting that contract 

award was originally published Nov. 7, 2017).

The FAR indicates that the winning total evaluated

prices would have been provided to all unsuccessful offerors in the competitive range within three days of the 

award. 48 C.F.R. § 15.503(b)(1)(iv) (“Within 3 days after 

the date of contract award, the contracting officer shall provide written notification to each offeror whose proposal was 

in the competitive range but was not selected for award 

. . . . The notice shall include . . . [t]he items, quantities, 

and any stated unit prices of each award. If the number of 

items or other factors makes listing any stated unit prices 

impracticable at that time, only the total contract price need 

be furnished in the notice.”) (emphasis added). And DISA 

in fact included the awardees’ total evaluated prices in its 

notifications to unsuccessful full-and-open offerors. See, 

e.g., J.A. 186838–39. 

Offerors in a government solicitation are “charged with 

knowledge of law and fact appropriate to the subject matter.” Per Aarsleff, 829 F.3d at 1314 (citing Turner Construction Co. v. United States, 367 F.3d 1319, 1321 

(Fed. Cir. 2004)). Here, that knowledge includes knowing 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 11

that the total evaluated prices would be disclosed to bidders in the full-and-open competition at or shortly after the 

announcement of the awards in that competition. It also 

includes knowing that the express terms of the solicitation 

contemplated overlap of bidders in the two competitions 

(directly or through partnerships or joint ventures), so that 

Inserso, if it had taken reasonable care, would have known 

that recipients of the information at issue could include 

bidders in the small-business competition. The law and 

facts made patent that the solicitation allowed, and that 

there was likely to occur, the unequal disclosure regarding 

prices that Inserso now challenges.

We reach a similar conclusion about the information 

regarding DISA’s evaluation methodology that Inserso alleges would have provided a competitive advantage to bidders in the small-business competition. Although the FAR 

does not require disclosing such information in the award 

notice, Inserso should have known that disclosure of this 

information was likely to be a part of the competitively valuable information required by the FAR to be included in 

the post-award debriefing. For example, post-award debriefings must include, at a minimum, “[t]he Government’s 

evaluation of the significant weaknesses or deficiencies in 

the offeror’s proposal”, “[t]he overall evaluated cost or price 

. . . , and technical rating, if applicable, of the successful 

offeror and the debriefed offeror,” “[t]he overall ranking of 

all offerors,” and “[a] summary of the rationale for award.” 

48 C.F.R. § 15.506(d). Although it may have been impossible to know the precise contents of the full-and-open competition’s debriefings, Inserso should have known that 

those debriefings were bound to contain information that 

would provide a competitive advantage in the small-business competition, including the “overall evaluated cost or 

price” of the successful offerors. Id., § 15.506(d)(2). 

In response to the government’s forfeiture argument, 

Inserso argues that it could not have known that DISA 

would debrief the bidders in the full-and-open competition 

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12 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

while the small-business offerors were still revising their 

proposals. Appellant’s Reply Br. 29–30. Inserso points out 

that the regulations do not set a strict time limit on debriefing; rather, they require only that “[t]o the maximum extent practicable, the debriefing should occur within 5 days” 

after an offeror requests debriefing. 48 C.F.R. 

§ 15.506(a)(2). Therefore, Inserso argues, DISA should not 

have conducted the debriefing for the full-and-open competition before the small-business competition closed.

We do not think it reasonable for Inserso to have believed that DISA would delay—for three quarters of a 

year—the post-award debriefing of the bidders in the fulland-open competition. The debriefing process is an important part of the award process, and the expressly stated 

baseline rule of five days demonstrates the very short time 

scale understood to be important. The “practicable” qualifier gives some flexibility: one treatise notes that when 

there are many offerors, debriefing may not be completed 

for weeks. Government Contract Bid Protests: A Practical 

& Procedural Guide § 2:11. But no evidence or authority 

presented to us suggests that the “practicable” qualifier 

has been used, or could be reasonably counted on by Inserso to be used, to delay debriefing for many months. Nor 

could Inserso reasonably rely on DISA to decide to delay 

the debriefing based on a possibility of unequal advantage 

in the small-business competition where nobody had called 

the issue to its attention. The Blue & Gold forfeiture standard exists in recognition of the need for interested bidders 

to call the agency’s attention to solicitation problems of 

which they reasonably should be aware.

Moreover, Inserso should have known that DISA had 

debriefed the bidders in the full-and-open competition once 

the GAO publicly dismissed a post-award protest of the 

awards in that competition. GAO’s regulations specify that 

for “a procurement conducted on the basis of competitive 

proposals under which a debriefing is requested . . . , the 

initial protest shall not be filed before the debriefing date 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 13

offered to the protestor, but shall be filed not later than 10 

days after the date on which the debriefing was held.” 4 

C.F.R. § 21.2(a)(2) (emphasis added). On February 21, 

2018, GAO dismissed a post-award bid protest challenging 

DISA’s awards in the full-and-open competition. Planned 

Systems Int’l, Inc. B-413028.5, 2018 WL 1898124 (Comp. 

Gen. Feb. 21, 2018). Inserso should have known, from the 

existence of a relevant protest at GAO, that the bidders in 

the full-and-open competition had been debriefed. Indeed,

the GAO decision states as much. Id. at *3. The decision 

is not subject to a protective order, and there is no indication that it would not have been publicly available on the 

day it issued. Therefore, Inserso is properly charged with 

knowing, on or shortly after February 21, 2018, that the 

bidders in the full-and-open competition had been debriefed.2

Because a bidder in the small-business competition exercising reasonable and customary care would have been 

on notice of the now-alleged defect in the solicitation long 

before the awards were made, Inserso forfeited its right to 

raise its challenge by waiting until awards were made. 

Whether starting from the November 2017 award in the 

full-and-open competition or from the February 2018 GAO 

denial of a protest in that competition, Inserso had months

to notify DISA of this defect before it submitted its final 

revised proposals. J.A. 178905. It had an additional two 

2 The dissent cites a solicitation provision that 

states: “The estimated labor hours used for evaluation purposes will not be provided to the offerors until after award.” 

J.A. 101918. That provision does not generally negate the 

expected normal operation of the debriefing process in the 

full-and-open competition. It applies only to estimated labor hours—thereby highlighting the obviousness of the defect by omitting mention of any other competitively 

advantageous information. 

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14 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

months before DISA selected the small-business awardees. 

J.A. 179528. Our previous cases establish that this amount 

of time is more than sufficient. See COMINT, 700 F.3d at 

1383 (“Here, Comint had two and a half months between 

the issuance of Amendment 5 and the award of the contract 

in which to file its protest. That was more than an adequate opportunity to object.”).

D

Enforcing our forfeiture rule implements Congress’s directive that courts “shall give due regard to . . . the need for 

expeditious resolution” of protest claims. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1491(b)(3). The rule serves the interest in “reducing the 

need for the inefficient and costly process of agency rebidding after offerors and the agency have expended considerable time and effort submitting or evaluating proposals in 

response to a defective solicitation.” Bannum, Inc. v. 

United States, 779 F.3d 1376, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (quoting Blue & Gold, 492 F.3d at 1314) (quotation marks and

brackets omitted); see also Per Aarsleff, 829 F.3d at 1317 

(Reyna, J. concurring). 

The policy behind the forfeiture rule is served in this 

case. In its suit in the Court of Federal Claims, Inserso 

asked the court to provide all bidders in the small-business 

competition access to the unequally disclosed information 

and to reopen the competition to accept revised proposals. 

Had Inserso objected to the solicitation before the submission of final proposals, raising its concern that some bidders might have received information by participating in 

the full-and-open competition, DISA could have confirmed 

that an unequal disclosure occurred and provided the nonproprietary debriefing information to all bidders in the 

small-business competition. Cf. 48 C.F.R. § 15.507. Inserso is now seeking the relief it could have gotten from 

DISA earlier, before DISA had already expended considerable time and effort evaluating the bidders’ proposals. Inserso has forfeited its right to this relief.

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 15

III

The Court of Federal Claims entered judgment on the 

administrative record “pursuant to the court’s Opinion and 

Order, filed April 1, 2019.” J.A. 6. Because the cited Opinion and Order relied on the determination that Inserso was 

not prejudiced by DISA’s disclosure—an issue we do not 

reach—we think it appropriate to vacate the judgment and 

remand for entry of judgment on the ground of waiver, consistent with this opinion.

The parties shall bear their own costs.

VACATED AND REMANDED

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United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________

INSERSO CORPORATION,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES,

Defendant-Appellee

FEDITC, LLC, RIVERSIDE ENGINEERING, LLC,

Defendants

______________________

2019-1933

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims 

in No. 1:18-cv-01655-LAS, Senior Judge Loren A. Smith.

______________________

REYNA, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

The majority decides that appellant’s claims are barred 

under the Blue & Gold “waiver rule.” This decision rests 

on shaky, legal ground and cannot stand. First, the 

validity of the Blue & Gold “waiver rule” is undermined by 

the reasoning in SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First 

Quality Baby Products, LLC, 137 S. Ct. 954 (2017). 

Second, the undermined Blue & Gold “waiver rule” does 

not apply to appellant’s claims, which arise from latent 

errors not apparent from the solicitation. Third, the 

majority decides to bar appellant’s claims under the Blue 

& Gold “waiver rule” in the first instance. We should not 

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2 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

engage in such overreach given that the parties did not 

brief, and the Claims Court did not discuss, the interplay 

between Blue & Gold and SCA Hygiene. I respectfully 

dissent. 

I

First, the majority’s opinion turns on the so-called Blue 

& Gold “waiver rule,” a hard-and-fast rule that this court 

created. This rule runs afoul of the separation of powers 

principle articulated in SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag 

v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, 137 S. Ct. 954, and for 

this and other reasons should not be the deciding factor in 

this case. 

 In Blue & Gold, we created a “waiver rule” for claims 

filed at the United States Court of Federal Claims (“Claims 

Court”) challenging a patent error in a solicitation for a 

government contract. Blue & Gold Fleet, L.P. v. United 

States, 492 F.3d 1308, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Although we 

called it a “waiver rule,” this is a misnomer. Waiver is an 

equitable defense, the application of which is left to the 

trial court’s discretion. Qualcomm Inc. v. Broadcom Corp., 

548 F.3d 1004, 1019 (Fed. Cir. 2008). To prove waiver, the

defendant must show that the plaintiff intentionally

relinquished its right. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 

(1938). Given the draconian effect of waiver, “[t]he 

determination of whether there has been an intelligent 

waiver of right . . . must depend, in each case, upon the 

particular facts and circumstances surrounding that case.” 

Id. The Blue & Gold waiver rule does not fit this definition. 

A court applying this rule gives no regard to the protestor’s 

intent and is afforded no discretion in its application. 

These are not the marks of true waiver.

Rather, the Blue & Gold “waiver rule,” in theory and in 

practice, is a judicially-created time bar. See Per Aarsleff 

A/S v. United States, 829 F.3d 1303, 1316–17 (Fed. Cir. 

2016) (Reyna J., concurring) (noting that under the Blue & 

Gold “timeliness bar” “[d]ismissal is mandatory, not 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 3

discretionary” (internal citations omitted)); see also 

Bannum, Inc. v. United States, 779 F.3d 1376, 1381 (Fed. 

Cir. 2015); Contract Servs., Inc. v. United States, 104 Fed. 

Cl. 261, 273 (2012); Unisys Corp. v. United States, 89 Fed. 

Cl. 126, 137 (2009). The bar is triggered solely by the 

timing of a protestor’s challenge. Specifically, if a protestor 

files a claim challenging a patent error in a solicitation 

prior to the close of the bidding process, the protestor’s 

claim is deemed timely. Blue & Gold, 492 F.3d at 1313. If, 

however, the protestor files such a claim after the close of 

bidding, without having previously objected to such an 

error, the protestor’s claim is untimely and will be 

dismissed. Id. at 1315; Bannum, 779 F.3d at 1380; see Maj. 

Op. at 8. There are no exceptions to this rule; its 

application is hard and fast. See Per Aarsleff, 829 F.3d at 

1316.1 The Blue & Gold “waiver rule” therefore poses as a 

rule of equitable waiver but is in fact a timeliness rule.

1 In creating the “waiver rule,” this court relied on 

various analogous timeliness doctrines. First, we noted 

that our rule virtually tracks the “timeliness regulation”

for bid protests filed before the Government Accountability 

Office (“GAO”), a federal agency which adjudicates bid 

protests. Blue & Gold, 492 F.3d at 1314. The GAO’s 

timeliness rule is a self-imposed filing deadline for bid 

protests, functioning much like a statute of limitations. 

See 4 C.F.R. § 21.2(a). 

We also found support in A.C. Aukerman Co. v. R.L. 

Chaides Constr. Co., 960 F.2d 1020 (Fed. Cir. 1992), a 

patent case where we relied on the equitable doctrines of 

laches and estoppel to bar relief, and in a long line of 

Claims Court cases applying the defense of laches. Blue & 

Gold, 492 F.3d at 1314–15. Notably, SCA Hygiene

abrogated Aukerman. See SCA Hygiene, 137 S. Ct. at 967.

Also, the Claims Court no longer applies laches to bar bid 

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4 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

In SCA Hygiene, the Supreme Court clarified that: 

“[w]hen Congress enacts a statute of limitations, it speaks 

directly to the issue of timeliness and provides a rule for 

determining whether a claim is timely enough to permit 

relief.” SCA Hygiene, 137 S. Ct. at 960 (emphasis added). 

Specifically, the Supreme Court “stressed” that “courts are 

not at liberty to jettison Congress’ judgment on the 

timeliness of suit,” even if the statute of limitations gives 

rise to “undesirable” “policy outcomes.” Id. at 960, 961 n.4 

(internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). 

Relying on this principle, the Supreme Court held that a 

court cannot rely on the doctrine of laches, an equitable 

doctrine primarily focused on the timelines of a claim, to 

preclude a claim for damages incurred within the Patent 

Act’s statute of limitations. Id. at 967; see also Petrella v. 

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663, 685 (2014) (“For 

laches, timeliness is the essential element.”). Yet this is 

precisely what we are doing in this case. 

The Supreme Court rejected the same concern we 

articulated as the driving force in Blue & Gold—that a 

plaintiff could sit on its rights to the detriment of the 

defendant—as justification for a timeliness rule distinct 

and separate from a statute of limitations. In SCA

Hygiene, the dissent argued that laches filled a “gap” in the 

statute of limitations which allowed patentees to “wait 

until an infringing product has become successful before 

suing for infringement.” SCA Hygiene, 137 S. Ct. at 961

n.4. The Supreme Court explained that such argument 

“implies that, insofar as the lack of a laches defense could 

produce policy outcomes judges deem undesirable, there is 

a ‘gap’ for laches to fill, notwithstanding the presence of a 

statute of limitations.” Id. The Supreme Court explained 

such gap-filling is “precisely the kind of legislationprotests in light of SCA Hygiene. See, e.g., ATSC Aviation, 

LLC v. United States, 141 Fed. Cl. 670, 696 (2019). 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 5

overriding judicial role” a court cannot take on. Id. 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Yet, in the face of this 

admonition, this court once again assumes such a 

legislative role.

Key here, and not discussed in Blue & Gold, is that 

Congress has spoken to the timeliness of challenges to 

patent errors in the solicitation. Congress provided that 

“[e]very claim of which the United States Court of Federal 

Claims has jurisdiction,” which includes challenges to 

patent errors in the solicitation, “shall be barred unless the 

petition thereon is filed within six years after such claim 

first accrues.” 28 U.S.C. § 2501 (emphasis added); see also

28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(1); L-3 Commc’ns Integrated Sys., L.P. 

v. United States, 79 Fed. Cl. 453, 460–61 (2007) (applying 

the six-year statute of limitations to bid protest claims). 

Congress also provided that the Claims Court has 

jurisdiction over solicitation challenges “without regard to 

whether suit is instituted before or after the contract is 

awarded.” 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(1) (emphasis added). Given 

this clear congressional directive, we cannot curtail the sixyear limitations period for challenges to patently defective 

solicitations. See SCA Hygiene, 137 S. Ct. at 967. Thus, 

the Blue & Gold time bar directly conflicts with the 

reasoning in SCA Hygiene. 

Additionally, our interest in reducing costly after-thefact litigation and procurement delays does not save the

Blue & Gold time bar from SCA Hygiene’s reach. We 

cannot override the Claims Court’s six-year statute of

limitations based on our own policy concerns. Id. (“[W]e 

cannot overrule Congress’s judgment based on our own 

policy views.”). To do so is to challenge policy judgments 

made by Congress in enacting the six-year statute of 

limitations. Petrella, 572 U.S. at 686 (noting that it is “not 

within the Judiciary’s ken to debate the wisdom” of the

applicable statute of limitations). 

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6 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

Instead, we consider the prejudicial effects of delay at 

the remedy phase. Id. at 685, 687 (noting that in 

“extraordinary circumstances, . . . the consequences of a 

delay in commencing suit may be sufficient to 

warrant . . . curtailment of the relief equitably awarded”). 

Here, the Claims Court has the discretion to “award any 

relief that the court considers proper,” including 

declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and monetary relief 

limited to bid and proposal costs. 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(2)

(emphasis added). Additionally, the Claims Court “shall 

give due regard to . . . the need for expeditious resolution 

of the action.” Id., § 1491(b)(3). Thus, the Claims Court is 

empowered to consider a protestor’s prejudicial delay when 

fashioning relief. Additionally, it is in the public interest 

that government-made errors in a solicitation do not go 

unreviewed, even if the only feasible remedy given a 

protestor’s delay is a declaratory judgment that the 

government erred. See Ian, Evan & Alexander Corp. v. 

United States, 136 Fed. Cl. 390, 429 (2018) (noting that an 

“important public interest” is served through “honest, 

open, and fair competition” because such competition 

“improves the overall value delivered to the government in 

the long term” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

The majority recognizes that Congress imposed a sixyear statute of limitations on bid protests before the Claims

Court. The majority contends, however, that the Blue & 

Gold time bar is statutorily authorized because Congress 

instructed the Claims Court to give “due regard to 

the . . . need for expeditious resolution of the action.” Maj. 

Op. at 9 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(3)). The majority 

misreads Section 1491(b)(3). 

First, a general and broad “need for expeditious 

resolution” of all bid protest claims does not translate into 

a discrete statute of limitations for a subset of bid protest 

claims, namely solicitation challenges. See Blue & Gold 

492 F.3d at 1315 (noting that “it is true that the 

jurisdictional grant of 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b) contains no time 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 7

limit requiring a solicitation to be challenged before the 

close of bidding”). Specifically, per its plain language, 

Section 1491(b)(3) requires the Claims Court to give “due 

regard” to expeditious resolution of an action, not license to 

override the Claims Court’s six-year statute of limitations. 

Additionally, Section 1491(b)(3) must be read in 

context with the preceding provision, Section 1491(b)(2), 

which gives the Claims Court discretion in affording “any 

relief that the court considers proper.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1491(b)(2); see, e.g., McCarthy v. Bronson, 500 U.S. 136, 

139 (1991) (noting that “statutory language must always be 

read in its proper context” and not in isolation (emphasis 

added)). When both provisions are read in harmony, the 

“due regard” provision refers to the Claims Court’s need to 

consider expeditious resolution of bid protests when 

deciding the proper relief. Specifically, the Claims Court 

should consider whether to order the government to restart 

the procurement process underlying the bid protest or to 

award relief which would not extend the procurement 

process, such as bid and proposal costs or declaratory relief. 

Lastly, the majority’s reading of Section 1491(b)(3) 

runs afoul of the Supreme Court’s reasoning in SCA 

Hygiene. As the Supreme Court explained, once Congress 

enacts a statute of limitations, the statute governs the 

timeliness of claims even in the face of other statutory 

provisions. SCA Hygiene, 137 S. Ct. at 963. In SCA 

Hygiene, the respondent argued that the Patent Act 

codified a laches defense, and, thus, laches could apply 

even in the face of a statute of limitations. Id. The 

Supreme Court explained that even assuming that the 

statute provided for laches “of some dimension,” it did not 

follow that such a statutory defense could be invoked to bar 

a claim filed within the statute of limitations. Id. The 

Supreme Court explained that “it would be exceedingly 

unusual, if not unprecedented,” for Congress to include 

both a statute of limitations and a laches provision. Id. 

The Supreme Court further explained that it was not 

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8 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

aware of “a single federal statute that provides such dual 

protection against untimely claims.” Id. As in SCA 

Hygiene, it would be unusual for Congress to provide dual 

protection against untimely solicitation-related claims via 

the broad discretionary language in Section 1491(b)(3) and 

the Claims Court’s clear six-year statute of limitations. If 

no federal statute provides such dual protection, it would 

be unreasonable to impose a court-made timeliness bar to

overcome a statute of limitations imposed by Congress. 

For the above reasons, Blue & Gold conflicts with the 

reasoning in SCA Hygiene, and, thus, should not decide the 

outcome of this case. 

II

Second, the majority improperly shoehorns Inserso’s 

claims into the narrow and now undermined Blue & Gold 

domain. The Blue & Gold time bar applies only to 

challenges of patent errors in a solicitation. Inserso’s 

claims, which do not challenge any patent errors in the 

solicitation, are not subject to this rule. 

The Blue & Gold time bar applies only to challenges 

against patent errors in the solicitation. Blue & Gold, 492 

F.3d at 1313. “Latent errors or ambiguities are not, of 

course, subject” to the Blue & Gold time bar. COMINT Sys. 

Corp. v. United States, 700 F.3d 1377, 1382 n.5 (Fed. Cir. 

2012). An error is “patent” if it is “an obvious omission, 

inconsistency or discrepancy of significance.” Per Aarsleff, 

829 F.3d at 1312 (internal quotation marks omitted). By 

contrast, “[a] latent ambiguity is a hidden or concealed 

defect which is not apparent on the face of the document, 

could not be discovered by reasonable and customary care, 

and is not so patent and glaring as to impose an affirmative 

duty on plaintiff to seek clarification.” Id.

Here, Inserso brought two claims before the Claims 

Court: an organizational conflict of interest (“OCI”) claim 

and, in the alternative, a claim alleging that the 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 9

government unequally treated offerors. Both of these 

claims arise from the government’s disclosure of allegedly 

competitive pricing information to only the bidders in the 

Full & Open suite—one of two suites at issue.2 This 

unequal disclosure occurred only as a result of a divergence 

in the timing of the competitions of both suites. This 

timing discrepancy between the two suite competitions 

developed well after the release of the solicitations. 

There is no obvious error, inconsistency, or discrepancy 

from the face of the solicitation indicating that the 

government would unequally disclose competitive pricing 

information. To the contrary, the solicitation informed 

bidders that the government (a) recognized that pricing 

information from one suite could be competitively valuable 

in the other suite, and (b) would take necessary measures 

to prevent unequal disclosure of such information. For 

example, the solicitation provided that the government

would not release its estimated labor hours, a key pricing 

data point, until the competition for both suite 

competitions concluded. J.A. 101918. The solicitation also 

provided that the government would identify any potential 

2 The competition at issue was divided into two 

“suites”: one in which businesses of any size could compete 

(the “Full & Open” suite), and one in which businesses 

which qualify as “small business concerns” could compete 

(the “Small Business” suite). J.A. 101891. Large 

businesses could compete in the Small Business suite as 

part of a joint venture with a small business. The 

solicitation also noted that Full & Open and Small 

Business suite competitions would begin simultaneously. 

As it played out, the agency completed the Full & Open 

suite competition months before the Small Business suite 

competition. Inserso competed in the Small Business suite

competition. 

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10 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

OCIs. J.A. 101815 (“If any [conflicts of interests] become 

known to the Government, as defined by FAR Part 9.5, they 

will be identified.” (emphasis added)). 

To hold otherwise places an undue and unjustified 

burden on contractors to actively investigate, anticipate, 

and preemptively challenge all conflicts of interest that 

could potentially arise under a solicitation. Inserso is not 

the government’s keeper. See NetStar-1 Gov’t Consulting, 

Inc. v. United States, 101 Fed. Cl. 511, 523 n.17 (2011) (“No 

doctrine or case requires a potential protestor to be 

clairvoyant or to police an agency’s general noncompliance 

with the FAR on the possibility that such misfeasance 

might become relevant in a protest.”). Additionally, for 

small business contractors, like Inserso, such a burden 

could disincentivize entry to the federal procurement 

market. Rather, it is the government’s burden to 

thoroughly investigate OCIs. For all federal government 

procurements, “contracting officers shall analyze planned 

acquisitions in order to . . . [i]dentify and evaluate potential 

organizational conflicts of interests as early in the 

acquisition process as possible; and . . . [a]void, neutralize, 

or mitigate significant potential conflicts before contract 

award.” 48 C.F.R. § 9.504(a); id., § 9.504(e).3 

The majority argues that Inserso should have known 

that the government would disclose competitive pricing 

3 Courts should exercise caution in applying the Blue 

& Gold time bar to OCI claims, if at all. An OCI is a 

significant error that undermines the integrity of the 

procurement process. See NKF Eng’g, Inc. v. United States, 

805 F.2d 372, 380 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (explaining that an 

“unfair competitive advantage . . . damages the integrity of 

the proposal system”). Given this gravity, and in light of 

SCA Hygiene, a court should review the merits of an OCI 

claim rather than bar such claim due to timeliness 

concerns. 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 11

information, specifically, details regarding its price 

evaluation methodology, to Full & Open competitors 

during the debriefing process.4 Maj. Op. at 11. Thus, the 

majority reasons, Inserso should have challenged such 

disclosure from the outset of the competition. See id. The 

majority misunderstands the nature of agency debriefings. 

Apart from certain baseline required disclosures not at 

issue here, a government agency has discretion as to what 

it will disclose in a debriefing. See 48 C.F.R. § 15.506(d). 

Agencies can fail to provide any meaningful information to 

bidders. See Anna Sturgis, The Illusory Debriefing: A Need 

for Reform, 38 Pub. Cont. L.J. 469, 470, 2009. Thus, 

Inserso could not have reasonably known that the 

government would release detailed price evaluation 

methodology information in the Full & Open suite 

debriefings. The majority reaches a contrary conclusion 

through the lens of 20/20 hindsight. 

The majority also suggests, without any articulated

principled rationale, that the Blue & Gold time bar can 

extend to non-solicitation challenges. The majority’s sole 

support is a non-binding Claims Court case. See Maj. Op. 

at 8 (citing Ceres Envtl. Servs., Inc. v. United States, 97 

Fed. Cl. 277, 310 (2011)). We have never previously 

extended Blue & Gold beyond challenges to the solicitation. 

See, e.g., Bannum, 779 F.3d at 1380; Sys. Application & 

4 Once a competition concludes, a bidder may request 

a debriefing. See 48 C.F.R. § 15.506(a)(1). A debriefing is 

an opportunity for the government to discuss certain 

aspects of the competition and its evaluation of the bidder’s 

proposal. If requested, the government is required to 

debrief the bidder. Id. Generally, bidders request a 

debriefing as a matter of course. Here, the government

completed the Full & Open suite competition before the 

Small Business suite competition. Thus, the government

debriefed the Full & Open suite competitors before the 

Small Business suite competitors. 

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12 INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES

Techs., Inc. v. United States, 691 F.3d 1374, 1385 (Fed. Cir. 

2012); COMINT, 700 F.3d at 1382; Weeks Marine, Inc. v. 

United States, 575 F.3d 1352, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2009). We 

should not do so today. Specifically, such an extension is 

contrary to the express reasoning in Blue & Gold. In Blue 

& Gold, we relied on a determination that the defect at 

issue pertained to the “decision during the solicitation, not 

evaluation, phase of the bidding process.” 492 F.3d at 

1313. We also noted that a time bar against post-award 

challenges stemmed from the Claims Court’s jurisdiction to 

adjudicate claims “objecting to a solicitation by a 

Federal agency.” Id. (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(1))

(emphasis added). Therefore, Blue & Gold made clear that 

any bar applies strictly to solicitation challenges only. 

III

Lastly, the majority acts with improper haste when it 

bars in the first instance Inserso’s claims pursuant to the 

undermined Blue & Gold time bar. As a general matter, a 

federal appellate court “does not consider an issue not 

passed upon below.” TriMed, Inc. v. Stryker Corp., 608 

F.3d 1333, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2010). There are, however, 

“circumstances in which a federal appellate court is 

justified in resolving an issue not passed on below, as 

where the proper resolution is beyond any doubt, or where 

injustice might otherwise result.” Singleton v. Wulff, 428 

U.S. 106, 121 (1976) (internal quotation marks and 

citations omitted). This is not such a case.

Here, the parties narrowly briefed the applicability of 

Blue & Gold below and on appeal. Specifically, neither 

party briefed Blue & Gold post-SCA Hygiene and instead 

primarily focused on the merits of Inserso’s claims. Most 

notably, the Claims Court did not address whether 

Inserso’s claims were time-barred under Blue & Gold but 

instead reached the merits of Inserso’s claims. Thus, given 

this backdrop, we should not apply Blue & Gold in the first 

instance. See Wood v. Milyard, 566 U.S. 463, 473 (2012) 

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INSERSO CORP. v. UNITED STATES 13

(noting that appellate “restraint is all the more appropriate 

when the appellate court itself spots an issue the parties 

did not air below, and therefore would not have anticipated 

in developing their arguments on appeal”). We should 

instead reach the merits of Inserso’s claims. 

I respectfully dissent. 

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