Attention to detail, as well as a little luck, recently paid off for two vendors vying for a spot in the new Hartsfield-Jackson International terminal, set to open in this spring. The contract dispute began when the city requested proposals for concession tenants, and 41 of the 95 proposals included disqualifying errors.

According to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, most of the proposals had not included forms relating to immigration regulations. Once the city realized the error was omitted in the majority of the proposals, they decided to scrap the original proposals and restart the process.

Restarting the process involved having the vendors resubmit their entries. The city felt that by doing this, it created more competition the second time around. With the second round of proposals, only eight of the 107 proposals had disqualifying errors, which made 99 proposals reviewable by the city. The proposals were for potential retail, bar and restaurant space.

Two of the largest vendors were awarded contracts worth $3 billion over the next decade. Those companies not awarded contracts may seek legal representation to see if there are any loop holes in the proposal process.

The city has released approximately 2 million pages of documents showing parts of the winning proposals to run the restaurants, bars and retail shops at the new terminal. The losing companies can use these public documents to gather information to challenge the awards. City officials did remove any information from the files that could be construed as a trade secret.

Source: The Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Second time a charm for two airport contestants ," Jeremiah McWilliams, Victoria Loe Hicks, and Kelly Yamanouchi, Jan. 10, 2012