Matter of OS-DB-JV-2, LLC

What did the court warn about?

GAO denied the protest on the merits, finding that the VA reasonably excluded the proposal because the protester did not submit the joint venture certification required by 13 C.F.R. 128.402(e), a material term of the solicitation. On the citations, GAO stated that parties appearing before it "have an obligation to accurately summarize factual or legal assertions, including cited decisions," and 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." It then wrote: "Here, because we deny the protest, we do not exercise our right to impose sanctions for submission of non-existent citations. The protester, however, is advised that any future submission of filings to our Office with citations to non-existent authority may, after a review of the totality of the circumstances, result in the imposition of sanctions." No sanction or referral was imposed. The decision is signed by Edda Emmanuelli Perez, General Counsel.

Why does Matter of OS-DB-JV-2, LLC matter for law firms using AI?

GAO decided the protest on its merits and addressed the citations in a separate closing section headed “Inaccurate Legal Citations.” The merits were straightforward. The solicitation’s amendment required joint venture offerors to include a certification signed by each partner under 13 C.F.R. 128.402(e); the protester conceded it did not submit one, attributing the omission to a clerical error, and GAO held that the VA reasonably eliminated the proposal and was not required to seek clarifications that could not cure a material omission.

The citation problem surfaced through the agency, not GAO. The VA’s memorandum of law reported that it could not locate four GAO decisions the protester relied on. GAO then asked the protester to respond and produce copies. The protester acknowledged that the citations could not be verified and explained, as GAO recounts it, that they were introduced through software tools used to support research and were not adequately verified. GAO’s own observation stayed hedged: the erroneous citations “bear the hallmarks of the use of a large-language model or other artificial intelligence (AI),” and reliance on AI programs without review “wastes the time of all parties and GAO,” a point it drew from its earlier Raven Investigations decision.

GAO’s disposition of the sanction question was expressly conditional. It reserved an inherent right to dismiss protests and impose sanctions, declined to exercise it “because we deny the protest,” and advised the protester that future filings with non-existent citations may, after review of the totality of the circumstances, lead to sanctions. Firms documenting compliance for procurement practices may wish to consider that a GAO decision is public, that the agency’s report may be where citation problems first appear, and that GAO tied its decision not to sanction here to the denial of the protest.