The protester claimed the awardee should not have received a satisfactory confidence rating for past performance when it only submitted one valid reference. GAO rejected this argument. The protester had only focused on the dollar value of the references. The RFQ established past performance in a variety of sizes, disciplines, and complexities could be relevant.
TEAM CSI Joint Venture, LLC, GAO B-422617.2, B-422617.3
- Protest – The protester challenged the issuance of a task order to provide enterprise information technology (IT) support services to the National Defense University. The protester specifically challenged the agency’s evaluation of the offerors’ technical proposal and past performance.
- Partial Dismissal – The agency requested partial dismissal on the protester’s claims of disparate treatment regarding proposed key personnel. The protester did not allege its proposal was similar to the awardee’s. It instead asserted that its proposal also met the requirements. The protester further claimed the agency’s evaluation “accepted an assertion by the awardee” that its approach was more complete. Then, the agency viewed anything less than it to be incomplete. GAO agreed with the agency that these were mere speculations and the protester failed to provide sufficient information to support its basis for protest.
- Technical Proposal – The protester contended that the agency misread or ignored information in its proposal. The agency responded the protester’s proposal lacked adequate detail in these areas. Though all instances were considered, not all were addressed.
- System Availability: The agency asserted that the protester’s proposal did not include details regarding how it would respond to an outage, but rather focused on how it would prevent an outage. The protester argued this did not match the evaluation record because the record downgraded the proposal for not addressing response or recovery procedures whatsoever, not for lack of detail. GAO did not buy the protester’s argument as it simply focused on phrases from the report in isolation.
- Change Management: The agency found the protester’s proposal insufficiently addressed the change management subfactor. The protester claimed the agency ignored information in its proposal concerning the entire lifecycle of the process, audit results, and post-implementation reviews. GAO found the agency’s evaluation was reasonable as the proposal did not discuss specific steps involved in closing out the change management process.
- Past Performance – The protester argued the awardee unreasonably received a satisfactory confidence rating under past performance when the awardee submitted only one relevant past performance reference. GAO found nothing unreasonable with the agency’s evaluation. The protester focused on the dollar value of the references to disqualify them as valid past performance. However, the RFP established that past performance projects in a variety of sizes, disciplines, and complexities could be considered relevant. Thus, GAO denied the protest.
- Small Business – The protester also complained that the awardee was not a small business. GAO dismissed this protest as size status determinations are reserved for SBA, not GAO.
The protester was represented by Stuart W. Turner, Nicole Williamson, and Kyung Liu-Katz of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholar LLP. The intervenor was represented by Emily J. Chancey of Maynard Nexsen, PC. The agency was represented by Colleen M. Eagan, Maurice Griffithe, and Peter Kwon of DISA. Michelle Litteken and Christina Sklarew of GAO participated in the preparation of the decision.
— Case summary by Joshua Lim, Assistant Editor.
