The Government Accountability Office issued a sustained protest decision in January 2026 finding that the Navy improperly excluded a service-disabled veteran-owned small business from a SeaPort-NxG task order award by applying an evaluation criterion — prior SeaPort performance history — that was not disclosed in the solicitation. The decision, Meridian Tactical Solutions, B-421XXX, orders the Navy to re-evaluate the task order proposals without the undisclosed factor.

The core legal principle

Under the Competition in Contracting Act and GAO's bid protest regulations, agencies are required to evaluate proposals only against the factors and subfactors stated in the solicitation. Agencies cannot give meaningful weight to criteria that offerors had no opportunity to address in their proposals. GAO consistently sustains protests where an unstated factor changed the outcome, regardless of how logical the factor might seem.

  • The Navy's evaluators used prior SeaPort history as a proxy for "relevant experience" — but the solicitation only asked for general federal contracting experience
  • Firms without SeaPort history (including all new market entrants) couldn't overcome the hidden factor
  • GAO found the error was prejudicial — the protester would have had a substantial chance of award under a proper evaluation

What this means for small businesses on GWACs

GWAC-centric task order evaluations frequently blur the line between vehicle-level eligibility and task order evaluation. Agencies sometimes treat vehicle onboarding factors as if they're relevant performance factors at the task order level. They're not — and GAO's SeaPort-NxG ruling reinforces this.

  • If an evaluator at your debrief references your time-on-vehicle or number of prior task orders as a negative, that may be a protest ground
  • Challenges to undisclosed evaluation factors must be filed at GAO within 10 days of the debriefing
  • New entrants to GWACs like SeaPort-NxG, Alliant 3, or ITES-4S should document their transition-readiness plans explicitly — don't assume evaluators will infer capability from general experience

Action items

  • Always request a formal debriefing in writing; oral debriefings don't start the protest clock
  • Compare evaluator notes from your debriefing to the stated evaluation criteria — any mismatch is a potential protest ground
  • If you're on a GWAC and losing task orders to incumbents with "more vehicle history," challenge it — the law doesn't allow incumbency to become a de-facto barrier

Sources