Link: GAO Opinion
Agency: Department of Justice
Disposition: Protest denied.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
GAO Digest:
Price evaluation, which included all option year license prices, was reasonable where vendor did not indicate any price reduction in option years for initial, “perpetual” licenses quoted in base year, and solicitation, as clarified by agency, provided that option year license pricing represented the cost of initial licenses for subsequent years.
General Counsel P.C. Highlight:
Privasoft challenges the evaluation of its quoted price. GAO states that it will review a price evaluation to determine whether it was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation’s evaluation criteria. Privasoft specifically asserts that, because its quotation identified its licenses as “perpetual,” and notwithstanding that it priced the 25 licenses for each option year as directed by the RFQ, the agency’s price evaluation improperly included the price of all 25 licenses in each option year. Had the agency used the reduced quantities in its evaluation, Privasoft’s total price would be lower than AINS’s.
This assertion is without merit. The agency made clear through its response to question 25, that it expected vendors to quote a price for “the cost of the initial 25 licenses for subsequent years” and Privasoft did this. While Privasoft’s quotation identified its licenses as “perpetual,” it did not indicate that this designation would result in any reduction in price. To the contrary, its price for each license in the option years was equal to or greater than the price quoted for the base year. To the extent Privasoft intended to quote a reduced price for licenses in the option years, it was required to clearly indicate this in its quotation, not leave it to the agency to deduce from its reference to perpetual licenses. Since an agency’s evaluation is dependent upon the information furnished in a quotation, it is the vendor’s burden to submit an adequately written quotation for the agency to evaluate; a protester’s failure to fulfill its obligation in this regard does not render the evaluation unreasonable. Given the absence of any indication in Privasoft’s quotation of reduced pricing for the option years, the agency reasonably considered Privasoft’s option prices and quantities–as quoted–in its evaluation. The protest is denied.