Protest challenging agency’s past performance evaluation is denied. The agency determined that the protester failed to substantiate the relevance of its past performance references. The protester argued that the agency could have inferred the relevance of its references from statements made in the narrative portions of the proposal. GAO opined that an agency is not obligated to deduce the relevancy of references from general statements strewn about the proposal.
U.S. Special Operations Command issued a solicitation seeking to award multiple IDIQ contracts to support the enterprise requirements of special forces missions. The solicitation required offerors to present three past performance references relevant to demonstrating their ability to perform the contact. Offerors were required to include rationale supporting the relevance of their references and to describe in detail how that the references applied to the criteria in the solicitation.
Patriot Defense Group submitted a proposal. The agency, however, could not substantiate the relevancy of two of Patriot’s past performance references. As a consequence, those references were rated only somewhat relevant. This rating resulted in Patriot receiving a limited confidence past performance. The agency did not select Patriot for award. Patriot protested, challenging the past performance evaluation.
Patriot contended that the agency failed to evaluate the past performance information in its proposal. Patriot argued that it had been wrongly penalized for not identifying the number of contracted personnel in its references. The company asserted that had the agency considered the positions referenced in the narrative portions of the proposal, it could have deduced the number of personnel that worked on the references.
GAO unequivocally rejected this argument. It is an offeror’s duty to prepare an adequately written proposal. The agency was not obligated to infer the number of contract personnel from various statements throughout the proposal. Evan if there were such an obligation, GAO reasoned, the agency, in this case, could not have deduced the number of personnel because Patriot’s passing references to personnel in the proposal never actually identified the actual number of personnel. Although Patriot’s protest filing attempted to mere clearly articulate the relevancy of its past performance references. GAO’s review is limited to the proposal.
Patriot is represented by Todd Wilcox. The agency is represented by Alexis J. Bernstein, Isabelle P. Cutting, Major Michelle Gregory, and Captain Allison Johnson of the Air Force. GAO attorneys Evan D. Wesser and Edward Goldstein participated in the preparation of the decision.
