Forty-four percent of the protests filed at the Government Accountability Office in FY 2018 received some sort of remedial action, according to annual figures recently released by GAO.  In fact, if out of scope or untimely protests are eliminated, contractors got something that they wanted more than half of the time.  Despite the negative perception some have of protests, these figures indicate that timely and reasonable protests continue to fill an important role in government acquisition.  Agencies do take some sort of remedial action when a protest points out potential problems.  While a protest doesn’t ensure that your company will get an award the next time around, it does mean that you have a good shot of getting another chance to compete.  While only one-half of one percent of all protests went to a formal hearing, GAO’s reasons for sustaining protests nevertheless provide clues as to why protests, generally, may succeed. The top three reasons GAO decided protests on in FY’18 were:  1.  Unreasonable technical evaluation; 2.  Unreasonable cost or price evaluation and; 3.  Flawed source selection decision.  As GAO’s new filing fee requirement was implemented half way through the year, it is too early to tell if that had an impact on the total number of protests.  As it is, protests were down only a very small fraction from FY’17.  The bottom line remains that companies with reasonable grounds for protesting a solicitation or award action should seriously consider doing so