How does an organizational conflict of interest (OCI) affect teaming agreements?

Your prior work on the architecture design could create an organizational conflict of interest, but it does not necessarily prevent you from teaming or bidding if you can mitigate the OCI. An OCI arises when a contractor's activities create an unfair competitive advantage or impaired objectivity, as outlined in FAR Subpart 9.5. Your firm's involvement in the initial design work could be seen as giving you an unfair advantage over other bidders who did not have that insight. The prime's long history with the agency is less likely to be an OCI unless that history involved similar design or evaluation work on this specific project.

To mitigate this, you need to identify the specific nature of the OCI. If it's an unfair competitive advantage, you might propose to wall off the individuals who performed the design work from the current proposal team. If it's impaired objectivity, such as if your firm would be evaluating its own prior work, then the agency might require specific actions like excluding your firm from certain parts of the contract. Discuss this directly with the prime during teaming agreement negotiations to develop a mitigation plan. The contracting officer will make the final determination on the OCI and the acceptability of any mitigation strategy.