Protest challenging the agency’s evaluation and discussions is denied, where the protester failed to demonstrate it was prejudiced by the agency’s waiver of a SAM registration requirement for the awardee, and where the agency reasonably found the protester’s limited past performance presented a risk, even though it favorably evaluated the overall past performance of the protester’s team. Because the agency rated the protester’s overall past performance favorably, and assessed no significant weaknesses or strengths, GAO concluded the agency wasn’t required to hold discussions with the protester.
Cyber Protection Technologies LLC protested the Air Force’s award of a contract for defensive cyber realization, integration, and operational support to Cyber Systems & Services Solutions LLC. CPT challenges CS3’s eligibility for the procurement as well as the reasonableness of the Air Force’s evaluation, discussions, and best value tradeoff.
First, CPT alleged the Air Force should have found CS3 technically unacceptable or otherwise ineligible for the award because CS3 did not adhere to the FAR requirement to disclose its status as a joint venture or the identity of its corporate parents in the System for Award Management. As a result of CS3’s allegedly invalid SAM registration, CPT argued it was precluded from contesting the intervenor’s size and eligibility for award.
GAO denied this protest ground, finding that CPT failed to demonstrate that it was prejudiced by the Air Force’s waiver of the SAM registration requirement. GAO also found that CPT failed to establish how the awardee had a competitive advantage based on its SAM registration and failed to explain how it would have amended its proposal had it known that the agency would not strictly enforce the SAM registration requirements.
In challenging the agency’s past performance evaluation, CPT argued that the agency unreasonably focused on subareas of past performance set forth in the RFP’s Relevancy Assessment Matrix instead of considering the cumulative performance of its team. CPT also argued that the Air Force failed to conduct meaningful discussions regarding the protester’s allegedly limited past performance.
In response, to the Air Force maintained that it reasonably assigned CPT and its team an overall cumulative past performance confidence rating of satisfactory. According to the agency, while the demonstrated experience of CPT’s team was comprehensive in all areas, CPT’s own limited experience relative to the evaluated experience areas presented risk to the government. The Air Force also noted that it did not identify any deficiencies, significant weaknesses, or adverse past performance information which would have required it to raise the matter of CPT’s relatively limited past performance, especially where the agency favorably evaluated CPT under the past performance factor.
GAO denied both protest grounds. GAO found the Air Force reasonably considered the past performance areas for the CPT team, as well as the distribution of the team’s relevant past performance compared to the anticipated division of work. GAO also agreed with the Air Force that the agency was not required to enter discussions with CTP regarding its past performance.
Cyber Protection Technologies LLC is represented by Mark H. Wilson of Whitcomb, Selinsky, McAuliffe, PC. Cyber Systems & Services Solutions LLC is represented by Katherine B. Burrows, Stephen P. Ramaley, and Christopher Denny of Miles & Stockbridge P.C. The government is represented by Alexis J. Bernstein, Lieutenant Colonel Damund E. Williams, Lieutenant Colonel Byron Shibata, and Kelvin D. Tuckett, Department of the Air Force. GAO attorneys Evan D. Wesser and Edward Goldstein participated in the preparation of the decision.