How can you be "too late?" Isn't the point of RFP postings that they're the first step in a process of soliciting proposals (bids) for the requested project? Th

How can you be "too late?" Isn't the point of RFP postings that they're the first step in a process of soliciting proposals (bids) for the requested project? They're certainly not supposed to be granted on any kind of first-come, first-served basis... combatting that sort of corrupt insider dealing is the whole reason there are legal requirements to post them in the first place. So while I don't doubt the premise of your cynical truism that "if you're discovering it via a public source you're too late," I hope that this is a separate issue from the RFP process itself, because any project where that's the case must be a project where the RFP was meaningless in the first place. And that behavior is also explicitly illegal, even if it's unfortunately prevalent and infrequently prosecuted.