Attorneys Jeremy Berry and Andrew Mason recently obtained a significant court victory for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (“MARTA”) in defense of a multi-million dollar contract award for Transit and Digital Advertising. MARTA issued a Request for Proposals to select a contract to maintain and develop MARTA’s advertising program (on buses, railcars, and in transit stations). The MARTA Board of Directors voted to award the contract to Intersection Media based on the Board’s decision that Intersection’s proposal met the Authority’s best interests. The incumbent vendor, Outfront Media Group, filed a bid protest to challenge the award to Intersection, but MARTA denied the bid protest.
Facing a year-end contract termination date, Outfront filed suit in the Superior Court of Fulton County, seeking a temporary restraining order and interlocutory injunction that would prohibit MARTA from contracting with Intersection and also seeking to require MARTA to award the contract to Outfront.
After a day-long evidentiary hearing on the matter, the judge denied Outfront’s motion for a temporary restraining order and interlocutory injunction, thereby allowing MARTA to proceed with its contract with Intersection. The court held that MARTA had considerable discretion to evaluate the proposals and determine which of the proposals was in the Authority’s best interest, thus acknowledging that the MARTA Board could determine that Intersection’s proposal was most advantageous. As such, the Court affirmed MARTA’s decision that Intersection was the most responsible and most responsive vendor that submitted a proposal that was in the best interest of MARTA to accept.
The attorneys at Chilivis Grubman represent clients of all types and sizes in connection with government contract/procurement matters and government litigation. If you need assistance with such a matter, please contact us today.