Link: GAO Decision
Protestor: Cusack’s Masonry Restoration, Inc.
Agency: Department of the Army
Disposition: Protest Denied.
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GAO Digest:
An agency properly rejected a bid as nonresponsive where the bidder provided for completion of performance within 350 days after notice to proceed which would not satisfy the requirement that performance be completed by August 31, 2013.
General Counsel PC Highlight:
Cusack’s Masonry Restoration, Inc. protested the rejection of its bid as nonresponsive under an IFB for construction services at the agency’s Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan facility. The IFB provided that work shall commence within 10 days after the contractor receives notice to proceed, and must be completed no later than August 31, 2013. Block 11 of SF 1442 indicated that the performance period is mandatory. The protestor submitted a bid indicating that it would complete performance within 350 days from the date it received notice to proceed, but did not unequivocally agree to complete the work by August 31, 2013.
The GAO found that the protestor did not promise to complete the work by August 31, 2013. It noted that, under the protestor’s 350-day qualification, the agency would have needed to give notice to proceed by September 15, 2012, to ensure completion by August 31, 2012; award was not even made until September 18, 2012.
Bidders must ensure that they submit a bid which complies with all the material terms of the IFB. Providing for completion of the work within a specific number of days, rather than a specific date as indicated in the IFB, exposes the bid to the risk of being rejected as nonresponsive.