Link: GAO Opinion
Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Disposition: Protest denied
General Counsel P.C. Highlight:
GAO denied the protest of Nas/Corp-Telmah, Inc. (NCTI), regarding the award of a contract to Metro Medical Equipment & Supply, Inc. (Metro Medical), by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) under a request for proposals (RFP), for a surgical ophthalmic microscope for the VA Medical Center.
The solicitation required offerors to provide a Zeiss OPMI Lumera 700 FL microscope and components, or an equal product. The solicitation included a list of salient characteristics that had to be satisfied by a similar microscope. Among the salient characteristics required, the solicitation included that the microscope’s light source provide stereo coaxial illumination (SCI) for red reflex illumination and field illumination, with both being adjustable.
NCTI’s proposal included a Moller microscope, but the agency concluded that it did not provide the required SCI feature. NCTI protested the VA’s rejection of its proposal as unacceptable. However, GAO found that the agency reasonably rejected NCTI’s proposal. The record did not show that NCTI’s proposal included sufficient information to demonstrate that its proposed equal microscope met the salient characteristics listed in the solicitation. Because NCTI’s proposal failed to address whether the offered Moeller microscope met all of the salient characteristics in the solicitation, the VA reasonably found the proposal unacceptable.