Foley Wins Bid Protest for WHR Group

Foley recently secured a major bid protest win in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims for WHR Group, a relocation firm in Brookfield, Wis. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had awarded WHR a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract vehicle for a one-third share of the FBI’s personnel relocations, and then announced its intention to take what the agency characterized as “corrective action” by cancelling all awards, including WHR’s award. This action would essentially require restarting the procurement over from the beginning stages. The Foley team immediately filed a bid protest for WHR and secured a temporary restraining order preventing the FBI from cancelling WHR’s award or conducting a new competition while the protest was pending.

In the protest proceeding, the Foley team demonstrated that WHR’s contract had been validly awarded, and the FBI’s stated rationales for cancelling WHR’s award and conducting a new competition were not reasonably related to the “correction” of an identified defect in the procurement process. The court agreed, issuing a ruling that secured a victory for WHR and preserved its contract award.

The Foley team included David Ralston, Steven Lambert, Frank Murray, Jennifer Forde and Olivia Singelmann.