Link: GAO Opinion
Agency: Defense Logistics Agency
Disposition: Protest denied.
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GAO Digest:
Protest that agency improperly failed to give the protester adequate notice of a procurement by failing to send the protester a copy of the solicitation is denied where the record shows that the agency properly provided constructive notice of the procurement to all potential offerors, including the protester, through publication of the solicitation on the Federal Business Opportunities website.
General Counsel P.C. Highlight:
The protester argues that it did not submit a proposal because it was unaware of the RFP and that this was the agency’s fault. SLG maintains that had the agency properly identified the protester as an approved source of supply, the agency would have furnished it with a copy of the RFP and it would have submitted a proposal; thus, in SLG’s view, it was the agency’s failure to properly identify it as a source of supply that resulted in SLG being unaware of the RFP and not participating in the competition.
The solicitation at issue here was posted on the FedBizOpps website. FedBizOpps has been designated as the government-wide point of entry (GPE)–that is, the single point where government business opportunities greater than $25,000, including synopses of proposed contract actions, solicitations, and associated information, can be accessed electronically by the public. Offerors are charged with constructive notice of procurement actions published on the GPE. Thus, even assuming, as SLG argues, that it should have been listed as an approved source of supply in the RFP (and therefore would have received a copy of the RFP directly from the agency), the protester nevertheless was on constructive notice of the contents of the RFP as a result of the FedBizOpps posting. Because the protester had constructive notice, the agency was under no obligation to furnish it with separate notice of the RFP. The protest is denied.