Is it permissible to ride a sole source? Provided that the original contract has a rider clause.

By formerfed on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 09:01 am:

A quick answer is yes, assuming that the original sole source included everything contemplated by the "rider" work and the CBD notice was sufficiently broad. Problems arise when you realize work later on after the sole source was finalized. To be truly clean, the sole source needed to include everything envisioned by what you now want to add, the synopsis covered it all, and the Competition Advocate was approving the entire gamut. The other issue is concerns whether the agency awarding the contract properly included necessary provisions for you to ride it, or whether the added work gets accomplished through the Economy Act or some other means.

Hopefully I didn't overly complicate things with my answer

By John Ford on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 09:33 am:

Adding to what FF has said, whoever wants to ride the contract has to make sure that the reason for the sole source is applicable to their situation. A sole source is not necessarily universally applicable. Thus, if the justification in the J&A does not apply in a particular circumstance, you cannot ride the sole source.

By Anonymous on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 03:14 pm:

Can a local government ride a Federal government contract?

By Anonymous on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 03:57 pm:

Often but only when the contractor agrees or specific terms exist in the Federal contract. Most frequently,if the parties agree the local government adopts the terms and conditions of the Fed contract in their POI: ie IBR Contract DODXX-X-XXX)

By formerfed on Friday, March 16, 2001 - 04:00 pm:

Normally, the answer is no. The local government would somehow have to be included with the the scope and ordering provisions. Interesting enough, one of the issues that arose through acquisition reform (Clinger-Cohen) was to permit state and local governments to order under GSA Schedule contracts. The concept was a "win-win" for all government by theoretically achieving lower pricing through greater volume. However there was a massive lobbying effort against it, so it didn't happen.

By Anonymous on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 08:33 am:

What is POI?

By Anonymous 33 on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 08:39 am:

"Purchase Order Instrument"?

By Anonymous on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 10:29 am:

YES