Matter of: G2 Ops, Inc.

What did the court warn about?

No sanction. In footnote 8, GAO restated that it "necessarily reserves an inherent right to dismiss any protest and to impose sanctions against a protester, where a protester's actions undermine the integrity and effectiveness of our process," and stated: "The protester's counsel is advised that any future submission of filings to our Office with citations to non-existent authority may, after reviewing the totality of the circumstances, result in the imposition of sanctions." On the merits, GAO denied the protest in part, finding G2 Ops had not shown the task order reflected pursuit of technology developed under its prior SBIR phase III award, and dismissed it in part because G2 Ops, not holding a JWCC IDIQ contract, was not an interested party to challenge the task order.

Why does Matter of: G2 Ops, Inc. matter for law firms using AI?

G2 Ops addresses the citation problem only in its final footnote. The protest itself turned on whether DISA’s sole-source task order to AWS for moving NAVSEA’s cloud environment to the Bluewater architecture was really a procurement of G2 Ops’ SBIR technology. GAO concluded that the protester had not shown the task order pursued technology developed under its SBIR award, denied that ground, and dismissed the challenge to the task order because G2 Ops does not hold a JWCC IDIQ contract.

Footnote 8 recounts how the citations surfaced. The agency requested dismissal; G2 Ops’ response cited cases against dismissal; the intervenor requested clarification of those cases; and G2 Ops’ counsel then filed a “Request to Substitute Response to Dismissal Request and Acknowledgment of Citation Error,” acknowledging citations to non-existent caselaw. GAO wrote that the citations “bear the hallmarks of the use of a large-language model or other artificial intelligence (AI) without adequate verification,” and that reliance on such programs without review “wastes the time of all parties and GAO.”

GAO imposed nothing, but advised counsel that future filings with citations to non-existent authority “may, after reviewing the totality of the circumstances, result in the imposition of sanctions.” Firms documenting compliance may wish to consider that here counsel acknowledged the citations and asked to substitute the response before the decision issued, and GAO still recorded them in its public decision.