Court Opinion

ID: 9459400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:19:18.08637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:08.748545
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
The appellees in their petition for rehearing assert that the award of a contract to Gateway Center Corporation (Gateway) was a negotiated contract, and that statutory provisions relating to advertising for bids are irrelevant to such contracts. Throughout this case, until the petition for rehearing, the parties, the district court, and this court have treated the issues on the assumption that the plaintiff-appellant was a *1245bidder who responded unsuccessfully to an advertisement for bids. The record establishes that there was an advertisement soliciting bids, and the defendants' moving papers refer repeatedly to acceptance of Gateway’s bid. The General Accounting Office treated the dispute as one involving acceptance of a bid solicited by advertising. The procurement in question does not appear to fall within any exception to the general rule that “[a] 11 purchases and contracts for property and services shall be made by advertising. . . .”41 U.S.C. § 252 (c). The Armed Services Procurement Act, 10 U.S.C. § 2302(2), defines negotiate to mean a contract without formal advertising. The Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, 41 U.S.C. §§ 251-60, does not contain a definitions section, but 41 U.S.C. § 254(c) implies that negotiated contracts are those accomplished without advertising. Our holding is limited to a reversal of a grant of summary judgment, however, and does not foreclose the district court from considering a different theory of defense to the action on a different record if it deems that course to be proper. As was suggested in note 7 to the panel opinion, the district court must also consider whether Merriam may have standing even aside from the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949.
The petition for rehearing will be denied.