In a sweeping bid protest decision, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (COFC) rejected all seventeen protesters’ challenges to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) award of 32 contracts under its T4NG2 information technology services solicitation. The protesters raised a host of issues—including whether the VA properly used an “on-ramp” provision to exceed the 30-award limit, whether it unlawfully held discussions with select offerors while excluding others, and whether it correctly interpreted experience requirements for advanced software technologies. The court found the VA’s decisions were neither arbitrary nor capricious and that no protester could show it was harmed by any alleged error.
Technatomy Corp., et al. v. The United States, et al., U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Consol. No. 24-451 et al.
- Background: The VA’s T4NG2 (Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation Two) solicitation sought IT services across a wide range of functions for the next five to ten years. The VA planned to award contracts to the 30 highest-rated proposals out of 173 eligible submissions. Thirty unsuccessful offerors initially filed protests. After an earlier ruling, the court remanded the case to the VA for reconsideration. On remand, the VA corrected scoring errors, added three new awardees, dropped one, and used an on-ramp provision to preserve awards to two offerors that had slipped out of the top 30 only because others rose in rank—resulting in 32 total awards. Seventeen disappointed offerors filed new protests challenging the revised award decision. Fifteen awardees intervened to defend it.
- On-Ramp Provision: Six protesters challenged the VA’s decision to use the solicitation’s on-ramp provision to award contracts to 32—rather than 30—offerors. Two offerors (Deloitte and CGI) fell out of the top 30 not because of their own errors, but because the VA corrected mistakes it had made in evaluating other proposals, which pushed those other offerors higher in the rankings. The protesters argued this was unfair, required the VA to add only veteran-owned small businesses, or violated the solicitation’s stated limit of 30 awards. The court rejected all three arguments. Fairness was a legitimate consideration, and the solicitation explicitly reserved the on-ramp to the VA’s “sole discretion.” Crucially, the VA’s approach was akin to maintaining a minimum score cutoff: any offeror at or above the score that originally earned 30th place kept its award. No protester lost points or dropped in rank because of the on-ramp—meaning no protester could show prejudice.
- Clarifications vs. Discussions: Ten protesters objected to the VAs use of clarifications. Many argued that instead of clarifications, the VA had held unequal discussions with some offerors. But the court rjected these arguments. The VA asked some offerors binary yes-or-no questions—such as whether an industry certification was still current or whether a cost accounting system had changed since its last audit. It did not allow offerors to submit new documents or narratives. The court found these were legitimate clarifications, not discussions. The VA also disregarded a narrative explanation one awardee (SAIC) volunteered in response, considering only its yes-or-no answer. The court deferred to the VA’s categorization and found no evidence of unequal discussions.
- Advanced Software Technologies: Nine protesters challenged the VA’s interpretation of MFA 4.3, which required offerors to show experience with “advanced software technologies.” On remand, the VA defined this as technology that is (1) emerging or recently developed, and (2) a significant improvement over prior technology. The protesters argued this was a new, unstated requirement that was also latently ambiguous—meaning offerors could not have known it would be applied and should have been given a chance to address it. The court disagreed. The term’s plain meaning within the solicitation was clear: the VA wanted technology that would meaningfully improve and advance its software engineering capabilities, not routine or incremental work. The court also deferred to the VA’s technical judgments in applying the standard to individual proposals, declining to second-guess findings that many protesters’ project descriptions described routine operations and maintenance or incremental development rather than genuinely advanced technology.
- First Four REPs Rule: Offerors could submit up to ten Relevant Experience Projects (REPs) to earn points. The solicitation required the first four REPs to reflect work performed by the offeror itself. Seven protesters challenged how the VA interpreted this for joint ventures—specifically, whether a joint venture could count work done by a member’s wholly owned subsidiary. Pre-award, the VA had told offerors through Q&A responses that subsidiaries and affiliates of joint venture members would count. The court found this interpretation unambiguous as to subsidiaries. As to which entities within a joint venture qualified as the “offeror,” there was a patent ambiguity in the solicitation’s text—meaning it was apparent on the face of the document. Under the Blue & Gold rule, a protester that fails to raise a patent ambiguity before award waives that challenge. The protesters’ arguments, therefore, came too late.
- Subcontractor Letters of Commitment: Eight protesters challenged the VA’s interpretation of the solicitation’s requirement that offerors provide a subcontractor letter of commitment when relying on a subcontractor’s experience for a REP. The solicitation’s language was ambiguous: it was unclear whether a letter was needed only for affiliates of the prime offeror or also for affiliates of a subcontractor. The VA acknowledged the ambiguity, adopted the broader interpretation (requiring fewer letters), and corrected inconsistent treatment from the first round of awards. The protesters argued they were being prejudiced because others were given points they should not have. The court rejected this. The ambiguity was patent—apparent from the solicitation’s text and flagged in pre-award Q&As—so protesters waived their challenge by not raising it before award. In any event, no protester could show it was actually harmed: none lost points for missing letters, and the burden of getting a signed letter from a subsidiary, when one already existed from the parent, was unlikely to have changed any offeror’s behavior.
- Small Business Participation Commitments: Six protesters argued the VA’s review of small business participation commitments was inadequate. The solicitation allowed offerors to earn extra points by committing to a certain percentage of work for small businesses throughout the contract. For commitments under 75 percent, the VA checked only whether they were “implausible on their face.” The protesters argued this was too lenient and that the VA should have applied a “realism” standard—scrutinizing whether the commitments were actually achievable. The court found the facial-implausibility standard sufficient. The solicitation only required a “reasonably realistic” review for commitments at or above 75 percent. Applying a stricter standard below that threshold would import an unstated evaluation criterion. The VA also reasonably relied on its prior experience under the predecessor T4NG contract, where a contractor achieved a 73.45 percent small business participation rate, as a benchmark for plausibility.
- Potential Collusion: One protester argued the VA arbitrarily evaluated the risk of collusion among offerors. The solicitation allowed a single company to participate in multiple joint ventures, but required “caution” to prevent arrangements that could lead to collusion. The protester argued that any company participating in multiple joint ventures should be presumed to pose a collusion risk absent specific firewalls. The court disagreed. The VA found no indicators of actual collusion or of arrangements that could compromise future task order competitions and obtained sworn certifications from 32 offerors that they had not engaged in collusive activity. The court deferred to the VA's factual investigation and noted that any challenge to the solicitation’s explicit permission for companies to join multiple joint ventures should have been raised pre-award.
- Joint Venture Agreement Requirements: Two protesters argued the VA should have disqualified certain awardees for submitting deficient joint venture agreements. The solicitation required joint ventures involving small businesses to submit an agreement covering resources, responsibilities, and performance arrangements. Because the T4NG2 contract is indefinite in nature—meaning awardees receive task orders over time rather than a defined scope at the outset—the solicitation allowed a “general description” rather than precise details. One protester also contended that joint venture agreements should have explicitly named the T4NG2 contract and that agreements with unsigned exhibits were invalid. The court deferred to the VA’s reasonable technical judgments about what qualified as a sufficient general description, finding that agreements could relate to T4NG2 through other indicia (such as being dated shortly after the solicitation or including the contract number), and that unsigned exhibits did not necessarily indicate that parties were not bound.