Agencies: U.S. Army Corp of Engineers
Disposition: Protest Denied.
Keywords: Best value; Source Selection Authority
General Counsel, P.C. Highlight: In considering a bid protest, a Court will not reevaluate proposals or substitute its opinion for the Source Selection Authority, but will only consider whether the decisions made were reasonable in light of the RFP requirements.
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GCC submitted a proposal in response to a Request for Proposals from the Army Corps of Engineers to perform emergency roofing repairs on an as needed basis, which was set aside for Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Companies. Technical merit was considered significantly more important than price. A number of proposals, including GCC’s, were ordered by the Source Selection Authority to be reevaluated because he found that there were major discrepancies between the evaluation board’s treatment of several of the evaluation factors. Following the reevaluation, the SSA determined that Ironclad had the best overall technical proposal and awarded the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract to Ironclad Services, Inc.
GCC decided to challenge this decision at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on the grounds that the reevaluation was an abuse of discretion by the SSA and that the final technical-price tradeoff was unreasonable.
The Court noted that, in a best value procurement as present in this case, the agency is granted wide deference in making its evaluation and final decision. Further, the Court does not re-evaluate proposals or sit as a super Source Selection Authority in a bid protest to the Court of Federal Claims. The Court will “confine its review to determining whether the agency’s decision was arbitrary and capricious.” The Court reviewed the initial Source Selection Evaluation Plan, the RFP, and the evaluation documents. The Court determined in this case that the Source Selection Authority had proper authority to order a reevaluation and that the resulting reevaluation and award decision was reasonable. The Court denied GCC’s protest. The Court therefore granted the Government’s motion for judgment on the administrative record.