Conflict of Interest - General Guidance

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has developed guidance through its conflicts of interest policy to provide direction to firms and individuals directly or indirectly performing services for FDOT in connection with a project. In some cases, further guidance is necessary to address unique circumstances. For example, there is discussion of potential P3 projects (solicited or unsolicited) of interest in the future. In each case, FDOT would have to provide a determination based on the work performed or currently underway by certain consultants.

A firm serving as one of FDOT’s primary technical consultants in the development of technical criteria that will be included in the RFP (or attachments to the RFP) for an P3 project would give that firm an unfair advantage and would be conflicted out based on their knowledge, familiarity, and previous work already performed on the project. Also, a firm’s planning, design, and/or traffic and revenue efforts along this corridor could give a firm an advantage over other competing firms.

For solicited proposals, it is FDOT’s general policy that a consultant or its affiliate would be prohibited from participating in any capacity on a proposer team for that P3 Project if that consultant were involved in more than 25% of the design of a corridor prior to the project being converted to a P3 project.  The percent completed by that consultant, number of component design plans by different consultants,  etc. must be considered. A firm seeking an exception to the above policy would be approved or denied by the FDOT Secretary of Transportation or his/her designee.

If improvements occur along a corridor via a P3 project, FDOT will generate a list of consultants, sub-consultants, legal advisors, financial advisors, and traffic and revenue consultants for the project. Those consultants will be identified as excluded or allowed based on the amount of work performed by each identified consultant.

For unsolicited proposals, the original design consultant or its affiliate for that design-bid-build project cannot participate on a team to submit an unsolicited proposal. During the 120 day advertisement period, the original design consultant or its affiliate may be considered as a participant on a team submitting a proposal with the approval of the FDOT Secretary of Transportation or his/her designee. The Secretary shall consider the percent completed by that consultant, number of component design plans by different consultants, etc. As a general guideline, a consultant involved in more than 25% of the design of a corridor would be conflicted out.