Most notably, the GAO’s report reveals that the effectiveness rate, which includes protests that resulted in either voluntary agency corrective action or a GAO decision sustaining the protest, increased to 51 percent from 44 percent in each of the previous two years. The effectiveness rate for 2020 is the highest since GAO began tracking this metric in 2001. The sustain rate also increased to 15 percent from 13 percent in 2019. The number of cases settled through alternative dispute resolution (ADR) also significantly increased from 40 in 2019 to 124 in 2020, which is the highest number since 2013 (145).

The total number of protests filed at GAO in 2020 (2,137) was down two percent from 2019 (2,198) and continued a downward trend from 2018 (2,642). The report also illustrates that the use of hearings played a smaller role in 2020. The GAO conducted a hearing in only nine cases in 2020, down from the 21 hearings conducted the previous year.

Finally, the report shows that the most prevalent reasons for GAO to sustain a protest in 2020 were: (1) unreasonable technical evaluation; (2) flawed solicitation; (3) unreasonable cost or price evaluation; and (4) unreasonable past performance evaluation. Notably, this list does not include three of the most highly successful protest grounds from 2019: inadequate documentation of the record; flawed selection decision; and unequal treatment.