Matter of: Transworld Systems, Inc; Account Control Technology, Inc. Agency: Department of the Treasury Disposition:Protest Sustained as to Transworld Systems, Inc. Keywords: Evaluation Criteria; Technical Evaluation Decided:December 22, 2017 Published: February 21, 2018 General Counsel P.C. Highlight: Not all protest grounds are discoverable prior to filing a protest. An agency’s inconsistent evaluation of factors results in a protest
Matter of: Fluor Federal Solutions, LLC Agency: Department of the Navy Disposition: Protest Sustained Keywords: Evaluation Criteria; Proposal Evaluation; Source Selection Decision Decided: January 18, 2017 Released: November 20, 2017 General Counsel P.C. Highlight: Proposal evaluation and source selection decisions must be consistent between offerors. When the record shows disparate evaluation and the protester is
Matter of: AT&T Corporation Agency: Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau Disposition: Protest Sustained Keywords: Evaluation Criteria; Documentation of Evaluation Decided: October 5, 2017 General Counsel P.C. Highlight: It is essential that evaluation and source selection decisions are adequately documented. Where the agency engages in discussions, they must be fair and equitable to all parties
Agency: Department of the Navy Disposition: Protest Sustained Decided: October 16, 2017 Keywords: Evaluation Criteria, Proposal Evaluation General Counsel P.C. Highlight: Agencies are bound not only by the terms and conditions outlined in the RFP, but also federal law. Additionally, an agency’s failure to document the rationale for decisions may result in protests being sustained.
Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Disposition: Protest Sustained Decided: April 26, 2017 General Counsel P.C. Highlight: Agencies must evaluate proposals consistent with stated evaluation criteria. Agencies must document their evaluations sufficiently, such that a reviewing body understands the process utilized to come to a decision. A failure to adequately document agency determinations
Agency: Department of Defense, United States Transportation Command Disposition: Protest Sustained in Part and Dismissed in Part Keywords: Timeliness of Protest; Evaluation Criteria General Counsel P.C. Highlight: (1) Objections to RFP structure, which may allow offerors to propose unbalanced pricing, must be objected to before the time set for receipt of initial proposals. Subsequent objections
Link: GAO Opinion Agency: Department of the Air Force Disposition: Protest denied. General Counsel P.C. Highlight: GAO denied the protest of Alpha-Omega Change Engineering, Inc. (AOCE), based on the rejection of its proposal and the award of contracts to Intecon, LLC and S4, Inc. under a request for proposals (RFP), issued by the Department of
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Exelis Systems Corporation Agency: Department of State Disposition: Protest Sustained. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest challenging the evaluation of offerors’ proposed staffing is sustained where the agency did not reasonably evaluate the offerors’ proposals in accordance with solicitation’s staffing plan subfactor. Protest challenging the agency’s assignment of weaknesses to the protester’s proposal
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Pinnacle Solutions, Inc. Agency: Department of the Army, Army Material Command Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest that agency held defective discussions is denied where agency did not hold discussions with either offeror, did not invite either offeror to revise its proposal, and limited the scope of its communications to
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Kingdomware Technologies Agency: Department of the Army Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Cancellation of a FedBid buy after receipt of bids or quotations was reasonable, where the solicitation did not clearly inform vendors as to the nature of the procurement or the basis upon which award would be made. General
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Six3 Systems, Inc. Agency: Defense Intelligence Agency Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest that agency unreasonably and unequally evaluated proposals is denied where record reflects that evaluation was reasonable and consistent with solicitation’s evaluation criteria and that differences in evaluation did not result from unequal treatment. Agency decision not to
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: SENTEL Corporation Agency: Department of the Army Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest challenging an agency’s evaluation and selection decision is denied where the record demonstrates that the evaluation and selection decision were reasonable and consistent with the solicitation’s evaluation criteria. Protest that agency failed to conduct meaningful discussions is
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: NSR Solutions, Inc. Agency: Department of the Air Force Disposition: Protest Denied. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest that the protester is entitled to a higher past performance rating is denied where the agency’s evaluation was reasonable and in accordance with solicitation’s evaluation criteria. General Counsel PC Highlight: NSR Solutions, Inc. protested the
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: HydroGeoLogic, Inc. Agency: Department of the Army Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest that agency used unstated criteria to evaluate proposals is denied where allegedly unstated criteria were reasonably related to, and logically encompassed by, the stated criteria. Agency reasonably assigned offerors unknown confidence for past performance where it did
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: The Clay Group, LLC Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs Disposition: Protest Sustained. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest challenging agency’s procurement of bathroom paper products is sustained where the record reflects that the evaluation methodology utilized by the agency was inconsistent with the terms of the solicitation relating to the relative importance of
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Phair Security Solutions, Inc. Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Disposition: Protest Denied. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Agency’s determination that the awardee’s proposal represented the best value to the government is unobjectionable where the agency’s determination and selection were consistent with the terms of the solicitation and reasonably based. Agency’s evaluation of
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Deloitte & Touche LLP Agency: Department of Homeland Security Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Agency evaluation of vendors’ past performance is unobjectionable where agency reasonably concluded that awardee’s highly relevant past performance was superior to protester’s based on awardee’s prior performance of more relevant contracts. Agency evaluation of vendors’ key
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: MicroTechnologies, LLC Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest that agency used unstated evaluation criteria in evaluating offerors’ responses to sample task orders is denied where agency consideration of whether responses addressed the specific tasks necessary for successful performance of the overall sample tasks was reasonably
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: PN&A, Inc. Agency: Department of Energy Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest that agency misevaluated protester’s quotation is denied where the record reasonably supports evaluation that the protester’s quotation was unacceptable in several respects and the protester has provided no basis to question the reasonableness of the agency’s evaluation. General
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: The Kenjya Group, Inc.; Academy Solutions Group, LLC Agency: National Security Agency Disposition: Protests Denied. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Agency reasonably rejected the protesters’ proposals as technically unacceptable in accordance with the terms of the solicitation where the agency reasonably concluded that the proposals failed to offer a program manager who satisfied
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Gonzales-Stoller Remediation Services, LLC Agency: Department of Energy Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protester’s challenges to the agency’s evaluation of its proposal constitute mere disagreements with the agency’s judgments and provide no bases for sustaining the protest where the agency, in accordance with the stated evaluation criteria, reasonably and equally
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Y&K Maintenance, Inc. Agency: Department of the Army Disposition: Protest Sustained in part, Denied in part. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Protest of an agency’s evaluation of the awardee’s proposal under a key personnel experience evaluation factor is sustained where the agency did not evaluate the experience of the awardee’s proposed key personnel
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Applied Physical Sciences Corporation Agency: Department of the Navy Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Agency evaluation of proposals is unobjectionable where it is reasonable and consistent with solicitation evaluation criteria General Counsel PC Highlight: Applied Physical Sciences Corporation protested the award to Ocean Data Systems, LLC of a contract for
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Arcus Properties, LLC Agency: Department of the Air Force Disposition: Protest Denied. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: On a procurement involving the privatization of military family housing, agency was not required to point out adverse past performance on a prior contract because the issue had been previously brought to the offeror’s attention during
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: TrailBlazer Health Enterprises, LLC Agency: Department of Health and Human Services Disposition: Protest Denied. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: 1. Protest challenging agency’s cost realism evaluation of protester’s proposal is denied where the record demonstrates that agency’s conclusions were reasonable. 2. Protest that contracting agency improperly evaluated offerors’ technical proposals is denied where
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Walbridge Aldinger Company Agency: Department of the Army Disposition: Protest Denied. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: Agency’s source selection under a solicitation that provided for the award of multiple contracts, and which did not expressly discuss the protester’s and certain of the other offerors’ proposals as compared to the awardees’ proposal, was reasonably
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: Recreation Resource Management of America, Inc. Agency: Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service Disposition: Protest Denied. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: In a competition for the award of a concession special use permit for operation and maintenance of government-owned recreation facilities, protest challenging the agency’s evaluation of applications is denied, where the evaluation
Link: GAO Decision Protestor: IBM Global Business Services Agency: Department of the Army, U.S. Special Operations Command Disposition: Protest Sustained. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ GAO Digest: 1. Protest that agency evaluated proposals using an unstated evaluation consideration is sustained where record shows that agency gave awardee (but not protester) evaluation credit for proposing to achieve full operating capability
Link: GAO Opinion Agency: Department of the Air Force Disposition: Protest denied. Keywords: Evaluation Criteria General Counsel P.C. Highlight: An offeror’s must submit an adequately written proposal or they run the risk that their proposal will be downgraded or rejected. —————————————————————————————————————————– GAO denies the protest JSR, Inc. where its proposal was rejected, under a request for proposals (RFP), issued by
Link: GAO Opinion Agency: Department of Labor Disposition: Protest denied. Keywords: Evaluation Strengths and Weaknesses General Counsel P.C. Highlight: There is no legal requirement that an agency must award the highest possible rating, or the maximum point score, under an evaluation factor simply because the proposal contains strengths and/or is not evaluated as having any weaknesses.
Link: GAO Opinion Agency: Department of the Air Force Disposition: Protest denied. Keywords: Evaluation Criteria General Counsel P.C. Highlight: Agencies are required to identify evaluation factors and significant subfactors, but they are not required to identify all areas of each which might be taken into account, provided that any unidentified areas are reasonably related to or
Link: GAO Opinion Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs Disposition: Protest sustained. Keywords: Evaluation General Counsel P.C. Highlight: When using simplified acquisition procedures, an agency must conduct the procurement consistent with a concern for fair and equitable competition and must evaluate quotations in accordance with the terms of the solicitation. —————————————————————————————————————————– Douglas County Fire District #2 (DCFD)
Link: GAO Opinion Agency: Department of the Army Disposition: Protest denied. Keywords: Evaluation; Source Selection Authority General Counsel P.C. Highlight: Source selection officials have broad discretion in determining the manner and extent to which they will make use of technical and price evaluation results. GAO reviews the decision, not of the evaluators, but of the source
Link: GAO Opinion Agency: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Disposition: Protest denied. Keywords: Technical Evaluation; evaluation criteria General Counsel P.C. Highlight: An agency is not precluded from considering an element of a proposal under more than one evaluation criterion where the element is relevant and reasonably related to each criterion under which it is considered. —————————————————————————————————————————–
Link: GAO Opinion Agency: Department of the Air Force Disposition: Protest denied. Keywords: Past performance; Evaluation criteria General Counsel P.C. Highlight: Where an RFP contains general evaluation criteria, the Agency has a wide degree of discretion in interpreting them. —————————————————————————————————————————– The Air Force awarded a contract to General Trades & Services, Inc. (GTS) to provide