In Battelle Memorial Institute, B-424575, et al. (Sept. 10, 2026), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained a protest challenging an agency’s decision to credit an awardee with the prior experience and past performance of its corporate affiliate. The decision is a useful reminder for both offerors and agencies about what it actually takes to get credit for a teammate’s track record — and it shows how a single evaluation error, even on a factor ranked third or fourth in importance, can be enough to unseat an award.

The Procurement

The National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a solicitation for a 20-year, $8 billion ceiling IDIQ contract to provide science and engineering support services for the United States Antarctic Policy and Programs.

In addition to price/cost, NSF evaluated proposals under six non-price factors: management approach, key personnel, prior experience, past performance, small business utilization, and small business participation. Management approach and key personnel were the two most important factors, followed by prior experience and past performance.

NSF selected KBR Services, LLC, over Battelle Memorial Institute, concluding that KBR’s advantages under the two most important factors (management approach and key personnel), together with its lower price, outweighed Battelle’s edge on prior experience and past performance. Battelle protested on multiple grounds. GAO denied most of them but sustained one: NSF’s crediting of KBR with the experience and past performance of an affiliated company.

The Sustained Ground: Crediting an Affiliate’s Track Record

Of the five prior-experience examples KBR submitted, two were contracts performed not by KBR itself but by an affiliated company. KBR’s proposal described the affiliate as part of a “one-team delivery model” alongside KBR and various subcontractors, and it supplied the affiliate’s unique entity identifier and cost accounting standards disclosure statement, both of which the solicitation required for any team member.

NSF credited KBR with the affiliate’s experience and past performance, reasoning that the proposal’s references to the affiliate and to a collaborative delivery model made it clear the affiliate would be meaningfully involved in performance. Battelle argued this was unreasonable because KBR’s proposal never explained what the affiliate would actually contribute to contract performance.

GAO agreed with Battelle. The decision restates the governing rule: An agency may attribute a parent’s or affiliate’s experience and past performance to an offeror only where the offeror’s proposal demonstrates that the affiliate’s resources — its workforce, management, facilities, or other relevant assets — will actually be provided or relied upon for contract performance, such that the affiliate will have meaningful involvement in performance. Where the proposal does not tie the affiliate’s resources to performance, the affiliate’s track record is not a reliable predictor of how the offeror itself will perform, and crediting it is unreasonable.

GAO drew heavily on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims’ recent decision in Noblis MSD, LLC v. United States, 180 Fed. Cl. 667 (2026), which surveyed GAO and Court of Federal Claims precedent and distilled a default rule: Where a solicitation is silent on what an offeror must show to obtain credit for an affiliate’s past performance, the agency may consider that affiliate’s experience only if the offeror explains how the affiliate will be used to perform the work. General statements of corporate unity, or the bare fact that two companies are affiliated, are not enough.

Applying that standard, GAO found KBR’s proposal insufficient. Referring to the affiliate as a team member, describing a “one-team delivery model,” and supplying the affiliate’s UEI and CAS disclosure statement did not explain what personnel, systems, or management tools the affiliate would actually dedicate to the contract. GAO contrasted this with cases where attribution was upheld because the proposal specifically identified the resources at stake — for example, a letter committing the affiliate’s lines of credit and operating capital to contract performance, or a description of equipment and training the affiliate would provide to senior personnel. Vague assurances of teamwork, without that kind of concrete linkage, fall short.

Competitive Prejudice Sealed the Result

NSF argued that even if the attribution was flawed, Battelle suffered no competitive prejudice because prior experience and past performance were only the third- and fourth-most important factors, and KBR held advantages on the two most important factors plus a lower price.

GAO rejected this argument. The source selection decision apparently showed that the improperly credited experience did real work in the tradeoff: Although KBR had not demonstrated strengths in science support that would have ranked it above Battelle on substance, the affiliate’s referenced experience gave the agency a basis to conclude KBR nonetheless had relevant awareness of the contract’s activities, which NSF cited in explaining why KBR’s overall ranking stayed above Battelle’s despite the two firms’ otherwise similar technical ratings. The affiliate’s past performance similarly bolstered the agency’s confidence in KBR’s likely success. Because removing that credit could plausibly have narrowed or eliminated KBR’s advantage, GAO found a reasonable possibility of prejudice was enough to sustain the protest — even though the affected factors were not the most heavily weighted ones.

Practical Takeaways for Contractors

• If your proposal will lean on a parent, subsidiary, or affiliated entity’s experience or past performance, spell out — concretely — what that entity will actually do on the contract: which personnel, facilities, systems, financial resources, or management tools it will contribute, and how those resources connect to the specific requirements being performed.
• Corporate labels alone will not carry the day. Identifying an affiliate as part of a “one-team” structure, or just supplying its UEI and CAS disclosure statement to satisfy a teaming requirement, does not by itself establish that the affiliate will be meaningfully involved in performance.
• Agencies should require offerors to articulate the affiliate’s contribution during evaluation and document that analysis contemporaneously; relying on generalized team language invites exactly this kind of challenge.
• Offerors evaluating a competitor’s award should scrutinize how heavily an awardee’s prior experience or past performance rating depends on affiliate-sourced contracts, and whether the awardee’s proposal actually documents the affiliate’s role — this ground does not require the affected factor to be the most heavily weighted one to support a sustained protest.

If you have any questions about the foregoing or require assistance, please do not hesitate to contact Aron Beezley or Elizabeth Brown.