Securiforce International America, LLC v. United States

The government can only act through its authorized agents, and reviewing courts cannot substitute their judgment for that of the authorized government official. Applying precedent of a century’s duration implementing these fundamental principles, the Court of Federal Claims (“CFC”) found the government’s termination of a contract to be an abuse of discretion because the authorized contracting officer (“CO”) had not made the required, discretionary determination of whether termination was in the government’s best interests. The Federal Circuit reversed, obviating precedent because the “the Government” could terminate under the contract. The agency never identified who within the agency decided to terminate, but the Federal Circuit reviewed the record de novo to evaluate whether it believed rationales proposed by unauthorized others were reasonable. The questions presented are these:

1. May discretionary government procurement determinations be upheld as reasonable when the authorized official expressly disavows making the required predicate findings? and

2. May courts rely on grounds other than those of the authorized official to uphold discretionary determinations of “the Government”?