Amendments and Timeliness in Proposals to Government
The Government will often release amendments to a Request for Proposal (RFP) when it has reason to make changes or revisions to the RFP. Some of these changes may be “minor,” such as correcting an error in typing or they may be “major” or “material,” such as a change in the date or location set for receipt of proposals, changes to the specifications or delivery dates, and so forth.
In either event, always read the amendment. If you ignore the amendment, you do so at your peril. The reason for the importance of these amendments is that it further defines or clarifies the terms and conditions of the resultant contract. The identical information is provided to all offerors.
The offeror who is awarded the contract resulting from the proposal submitted to the Government in response to the RFP should have an unambiguous understanding of the terms and conditions of the contract.
Amendments are “minor” if they clarify some portion of the solicitation. A “minor amendment” that is not signed or acknowledged in any way may be accepted by the Government. The Contracting Officer may waive the failure to acknowledge the amendment as a minor informality. The Comptroller General decided that an “agency improperly rejected a bid that failed to acknowledge a solicitation amendment which was not material.”1
Amendments are “material” if they have an effect on the obligations of the contractor, such as price, statement of work, delivery schedule, etc. “Generally, a bid which does not include an acknowledgment of a material amendment must be rejected because absent such an acknowledgment the bidder is not obligated to comply with the terms of the amendment and is thus nonresponsive.”2
The subject of amendments was discussed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Fort Mojave/Hummel, a Joint Venture, B-296961, dated October 18, 2005.
