{"id":27406,"date":"2022-02-17T18:28:59","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T23:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/?page_id=27406"},"modified":"2022-02-17T18:28:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T23:28:59","slug":"08-odra","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/guidance\/adrguide-home\/08-odra\/","title":{"rendered":"ODRA Mediation in Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last\" style=\"margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy\" style=\"background-position:left top;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-size:cover;-moz-background-size:cover;-o-background-size:cover;background-size:cover;padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;\"><style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><div class=\"fusion-title title fusion-title-1 fusion-title-text fusion-title-size-two\" style=\"margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:31px;margin-left:0px;\"><h2 class=\"title-heading-left\" style=\"margin:0;\">ODRA Mediation in Protests<\/h2><span class=\"awb-title-spacer\"><\/span><div class=\"title-sep-container\"><div class=\"title-sep sep-double sep-solid\" style=\"border-color:#e0dede;\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><p>Mediations at the ODRA\u00a0have\u00a0similar procedures regardless of whether the matter is a protest, a contract dispute, or a pre-dispute.\u00a0 All mediations are facilitative, but may employ evaluative techniques if necessary or desired.\u00a0 All begin with an ADR agreement, and may end in a settlement agreement.\u00a0 All are subject to confidentiality standards, and involve neutrals who will not participate in the adjudication process if resolution is not achieved.\u00a0 Nevertheless, by their nature, protests create some unique features and opportunities in mediation.\u00a0 These features are detailed below.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><u>Protective Order Procedures.<\/u><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Various statutes and regulations limit an offeror’s\u00a0access\u00a0to another offeror’s proposal or to\u00a0the agency’s source selection information.\u00a0\u00a0The reasoning, of course, is that if such access were permitted, the recipient would gain a significant\u00a0competitive advantage that would disrupt the benefits that agencies achieve\u00a0through competition.\u00a0 Conversely,\u00a0all protests forums\u00a0(GAO, U.S. Court of Federal\u00a0Claims, and ODRA) benefit from parties having access to information so they can effectively\u00a0adjudciate the acquisition procedures used in the challenged procurement.\u00a0 Protective orders accommodate these competing needs by allowing only certain representatives and consultants access to the otherwise protected information.\u00a0 These individuals typically are not employees, owners, or officers of the private parties; rather, they frequently are attorneys or paid consultants who are admitted to a protective order after promising to abide by its terms.\u00a0 An attorney or other professional who violates a protecive order may be subject to significant sanctions and risks his or her ability to continue their professional\u00a0practice.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><u>Use of Common Core Documents<\/u><\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 The AMS policy and the AMS guidance encourage documentation at all stages of the acquisition process.\u00a0 Although document titles vary, a typical post-award protest will center on key documents such as the solicitation, technical evalution reports, cost or price evaluation reports, and memorandum recording the basis for the award decision.\u00a0 Portions of these documents\u00a0usually are provided to an unsuccessful offeror in a debriefing, but often they are\u00a0heavily redacted to prevent release of information from another party’s proposal or to protect source selection information.\u00a0 After filing a protest and admission to a protective order, a representative of the protester may view relevant portions of these documents.\u00a0 Naturally, a mediation conducted under a protective order similarly will improve the parties’ ability\u00a0to explore the statements in the documents as they relate to the protest.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><u>Enhanced Debriefing Opportunity<\/u><\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Sometimes an ODRA ADR process takes the form of an enhanced debriefing, followed by mediation.\u00a0 At a routine debriefing, agency officials\u00a0review the evaluation results with unsuccessful offerors\u00a0so that\u00a0the\u00a0offerors\u00a0can improve the proposals they provide in the future.\u00a0\u00a0Ordinary conducted without a protective order, pre-protest debriefings frequently involved\u00a0redacted versions of the core documents and circumspect discussions of the evaluation.\u00a0\u00a0The filing of\u00a0a protest and the\u00a0issuance of a protective order creates the opportunity to give an enhanced debriefing to an unsuccessful offeror’s representative who is admitted under to the protective order.\u00a0 Both parties can benefit from this process.\u00a0 Freed from constrains on release of information, the agency’s evaluators can fully discuss the basis for their evaluation.\u00a0 Similarly, a protester benefits by having a trusted representative receive unfiltered information that can be evaluated to determine if continuing the protest or filing a supplemental protest makes business sense.\u00a0 The role of the mediator in an enhanced debriefing is to facilitate the communication between the agency and the protester’s representative.<\/p>\n<p><em><u><strong>Mediation Sessions<\/strong><\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 As with most familiar models of mediation, the ODRA typically\u00a0uses joint sessions and caucus sessions.\u00a0 Recognizing that the FAA’s operations\u00a0span\u00a0the nation and even cross national borders, the ODRA\u00a0frequently conducts its mediations telephonically or\u00a0using video-teleconferencing.<\/p>\n<p><em><u><strong>Concluding the Mediation<\/strong><\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0When either or both parties conclude that resolution will not occur, they may voluntarily withdraw from the mediation process and request that the ODRA commence the adjudication process.\u00a0 When resolution is achieved, the parties usually execute a settlement agreement.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"fusion-clearfix\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":27194,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27406\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adr.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}