Organizational conflict of interest (OCI)
Also called: OCI, organizational conflict of interest, conflict of interest, OCI mitigation plan
An organizational conflict of interest exists when a firm's other activities or relationships leave it unable to give impartial advice to the government, impair its objectivity in performing the work, or give it an unfair competitive advantage.
The definition is in FAR 2.101 and the rules are in FAR 9.5, which tells contracting officers to identify an OCI and avoid, neutralize or mitigate it before award. The three recognized kinds are biased ground rules (helping write the specification or work statement for a contract you then bid on), impaired objectivity (evaluating your own or a competitor's products), and unequal access to information (holding non-public data from other work that competitors do not have). A solicitation may carry an OCI clause, ask for a disclosure, or require a mitigation plan such as a firewall between teams.
What to check: every prior and current contract with the same agency, the roles of your subcontractors and teaming partners (their conflicts become yours), and whether the clause bars the awardee from related future work. Raise a possible OCI early; a competitor will raise it in a protest if you do not.
What it is not: a personal conflict of interest, which concerns an individual employee and is covered in FAR 3.11.
See also: Bid protest, Teaming agreement, Contracting officer (CO or KO), Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)
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