Legal problems for OU: Bids for material in dispute

[SoonerDave]

A Kansas construction company has received and injuction that could temporarily stop OU's work on renovation of Memorial Stadium over allegations of favoritism in the bidding process.

HMS of Kansas alleges OU of cronyism in awarding a contract for concrete panels to OKC-based W&W Steel when HMS offered a bid some $90,000 lower, but OU cited W&W's prior experience in stadium construction as the factor leading to their selection. HMS counters that so such requirement was specified in the original project solicitation. OU is said to have relied on the recommendation of Flintco.

Any legal beagles here following this and have an.opinion? Has OU done something careless or dumb? Or is this an opportunistic bidder leveraging a settlement knowing OU wants neither embarrassment nor delays in the stadium project?

[Snowman]

While I do not have legal experience, I do have some experience with RFPs from the side of analyzing what should be the requirements in them, it is pretty par for the coarse for one or more losers to sue. Most of the time nothing comes of it but it is a low enough cost to them with high enough reward if successful that it was pretty much expected on a lot of the bids the agency I was doing contract work for did. Depending on the judge it might be weeks or months, though OU might have even planned for this in their timeline, it is also common for there to be language that they will have some discretion on the selection criteria and it will not be on cost alone (you do get people with no experience to submit bids way lower than others, some companies also have a reputation for low balling the bid and then tacking on costly change orders).