9.505 General rules
Source: FAR 9.505 on acquisition.gov
FAR 9.505 requires contracting professionals to proactively identify and address organizational conflicts of interest to ensure fairness and integrity in federal contracting.
Overview
FAR 9.505 establishes the general rules for identifying, avoiding, neutralizing, or mitigating organizational conflicts of interest (OCI) in federal contracting. It sets out two core principles: preventing conflicting roles that could bias a contractor’s judgment and preventing unfair competitive advantage. The section emphasizes that each contracting situation must be evaluated individually, using common sense and sound discretion, as conflicts may arise even outside the specific scenarios listed in 9.505-1 through 9.505-4 or the examples in 9.508. Unfair competitive advantage is specifically defined to include situations where a contractor has unauthorized access to proprietary or source selection information. The rules in this section serve as the foundation for more detailed OCI guidance in subsequent sections.
The general rules in 9.505-1 through 9.505-4 prescribe limitations on contracting as the means of avoiding, neutralizing, or mitigating organizational conflicts of interest that might otherwise exist in the stated situations. Some illustrative examples are provided in 9.508. Conflicts may arise in situations not expressly covered in this section 9.505 or in the examples in 9.508. Each individual contracting situation should be examined on the basis of its particular facts and the nature of the proposed contract. The exercise of common sense, good judgment, and sound discretion is required in both the decision on whether a significant potential conflict exists and, if it does, the development of an appropriate means for resolving it. The two underlying principles are-
(a) Preventing the existence of conflicting roles that might bias a contractor’s judgment; and
(b) Preventing unfair competitive advantage. In addition to the other situations described in this subpart, an unfair competitive advantage exists where a contractor competing for award of any Federal contract possesses-
(1) Proprietary information that was obtained from a Government official without proper authorization; or
(2) Source selection information (as defined in 2.101) that is relevant to the contract but is not available to all competitors, and such information would assist that contractor in obtaining the contract.