Month: July 2025

OECD Public Procurement Forum 2025

On July 1-2, 2025, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) held its Public Procurement Forum 2025, a major international conference to discuss cutting-edge developments in public procurement around the world.

Panelists (L-R) Nicolas Pinaud, Chris Yukins, Gavin Hayman, Filipa Urbano Calvao, Aidan Sweeney & Gillian Dorner

Professor Christopher Yukins (GW Law) joined a panel (listed below) to discuss building public trust through public procurement.

In his presentation, Professor Yukins argued that the principal-agent theory, see, e.g., Michael C. Jensen & William H. Meckling, Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure (1976), broadly applied to public procurement for decades, see, e.g., Peter Trepte, Regulating Procurement (Oxford U. Press 2005); Christopher Yukins, A Versatile Prism: Assessing Procurement Law Through the Principal-Agent Model, 40 Pub. Cont. L.J. 63 (2010), offers a means of both predicting and mitigating losses of public trust in procurement.

Professor Yukins argued that the OECD can play a critical convening role, helping the key players in reinforcing public trust — vendors, enforcement officials, members of civil societies and other — address the agency and monitoring problems that can otherwise erode public trust in public procurement.

House Government Operations Subcommittee: Bid Protest Reform

On July 22, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Government Operations, held a hearing on “Bid Protest Reform: Understanding the Problem” (Congress.gov record of hearing).

The hearing was led by the Subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Pete Sessions (TX), and ranking member Rep. Kweisi Mfume (MD). Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC) also offered opening remarks. The hearing (subcommittee record) was called to allow members of Congress to hear from experts about potential bid protest reforms.

Kenneth Patton, U.S. Government Accountability Office

Kenneth Patton, Managing Associate General Counsel at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and a member of GW Law’s Government Procurement Law Program advisory board, was the lead witness. He presented GAO’s response to Section 885 of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which asked for input on proposed changes, such as charging costs to losing protesters. Ken Patton explained why GAO (and the Defense Department) believe radical changes to the protest system are not needed — that the bid protest system is fundamentally sound, after a century of development. (See ABA submission on Section 885.)

Professor Christopher Yukins (GW Law) and Zachary Prince (GW Law JD 2013 (with honors), partner at the law firm of Haynes & Boone and an adjunct professor at the Law School) agreed. In his testimony, Zach Prince urged members of Congress instead to expand agency debriefings to losing bidders, to reduce bid protests and expand transparency, and Chris Yukins did the same in his testimony. See, e.g., Nathaniel Castellano & Peter Camp, Postscript III: Enhanced Debriefings: A Simple Strategy for a More Manageable Protest Process, 35 Nash & Cibinic Rep. ¶ 46 (2021). (By coincidence, GW Law the same day hosted part of its global webinar series with the Open Contracting Partnership in Asia, on transparency in contracting.)

Editor’s note: On August 14, 2025, Chris Yukins submitted his responses to follow-up questions from Chairman Pete Sessions, on potential pathways to bid protest reform.

After the hearing Chris Yukins and Zach Prince met with House staffers to discuss next steps, including a webinar that GW Law will be holding on September 9 on developments in bid protests — click above to register.

Related Webinar

GW Law Webinar: U.S. Bid Protests — Progress and Reform