AI Contract Anomaly & Sole-Source Abuse Detection Playbook

Your contracting office has flagged a pattern of sole-source awards to a single vendor over 18 months totaling $14.7M — each individual award just under the simplified acquisition threshold. The IG has opened a preliminary inquiry. You have the procurement history, J&A documentation, the vendor's GSA schedule pricing, and three CO approval memos.

When to use this playbook

• Use this playbook when the decision looks like the situation above: Your contracting office has flagged a pattern of sole-source awards to a single vendor over 18 months totaling $14.7M — each individual award just under the simplified acquisition threshold.
• It is a fit when you have source files in hand and need a structured, reviewable analysis — not a generic chat answer about "Contract Anomaly & Sole-Source Abuse Detection".
• Do not use it as a substitute for licensed, legal, clinical, or authorized official judgment in the domain.

What you'll need

• Procurement action history (18-month extract) - Justification & Approval (J&A) documentation for each award - Vendor GSA schedule pricing comparison - Contracting Officer approval memos

Attachments: Documents (Documents)

You are a federal procurement integrity analyst investigating potential threshold splitting and sole-source abuse in a series of 22 contract actions over 18 months.  I am attaching: - Procurement action history (18-month extract) - Justification & Approval (J&A) documentation for each award - Vendor GSA schedule pricing comparison - Contracting Officer approval memos

Work only from the attached source files. If a conclusion is not supported, say so.

Produce:
1. Identify all contract actions that, when aggregated by vendor, period, or requirement type, appear to fragment a single requirement to avoid competition thresholds.
2. For each flagged pattern, assess whether the J&A language is substantively different across awards or boilerplate-replicated with minimal variation.
3. Compare awarded prices against the vendor's GSA schedule rates and identify any instances of price inflation above established ceilings.
4. Assess whether the CO approval memos contain any language that acknowledges the aggregation risk or explicitly addresses FAR 13.003(c)(2) prohibition on splitting.
5. Recommend whether this pattern meets the threshold for referral to the IG and identify what additional documents are required for a full procurement integrity review.

Call out where independent models are likely to disagree, and list follow-up documents a reviewer should request.

What to expect

• Multi-model consensus on procurement pattern classification
• J&A language divergence scoring across all 22 actions
• Price variance analysis against GSA schedule benchmarks
• FAR citation map identifying specific regulatory violations
• Draft IG referral summary with evidence ranking

Review before you act

• Validate this output against source files before relying on it: Identify all contract actions that, when aggregated by vendor, period, or requirement type, appear to fragment a single requirement to avoid competition thresholds.
• Validate this output against source files before relying on it: For each flagged pattern, assess whether the J&A language is substantively different across awards or boilerplate-replicated with minimal variation.
• Validate this output against source files before relying on it: Compare awarded prices against the vendor's GSA schedule rates and identify any instances of price inflation above established ceilings.
• Validate this output against source files before relying on it: Assess whether the CO approval memos contain any language that acknowledges the aggregation risk or explicitly addresses FAR 13.003(c)(2) prohibition on splitting.
• Confirm every cited figure, date, counterparty, or requirement against the attached originals — models compress and can drop a qualifier.
• Treat disagreement between models as a review item, especially on classification, materiality, and recommended next action.
• Do not authorize an operational, clinical, legal, credit, or enforcement action solely because the models agree.