RAND Corporation recently issued its much-anticipated report on the prevalence and impact of bid protests. The report, which was issued at the direction of Congress, contains a plethora of important—and interesting—findings, including:

• Despite a “steady increase” in bid protests filed between fiscal years 2008 and 2016, “[t]he share of contracts protested remains very small—less than 0.3 percent.”
• A “concern” shared by federal contractors “was the quality of post-award debriefings.” According to the report, “[t]he worst debriefings were characterized as skimpy, adversarial, or evasive and failed to provide reasonable responses to relevant questions.”
• “[S]mall protest rates per contract imply that bid protests are exceedingly uncommon for DoD procurements.”
• “Task-order protests have a slightly higher effectiveness rate than other types of protests.”
• “The stability of the bid protest effectiveness rate over time—despite the increase in protest numbers—suggests that firms are not likely to protest without merit.”
• “Cases in which legal counsel is required (i.e., a protective order was issued by GAO) have higher effectiveness and sustained rates.”

A complete copy of the report is available here.