Protests challenging agency’s acceptance of higher-priced proposals are denied. The protesters asserted that the agency failed to downgrade awardees for proposing a customized as opposed to a commercially available approach. GAO reasoned that while the solicitation provided that a commercially available approach was preferred, it did not require a downgrading of customized approaches. The protesters asserted that the agency botched the price reasonableness evaluation, but GAO found that assessment of price adhered to the solicitation. The protesters also argued that the best value decision was flawed because the agency focused too heavily on technical ratings and not enough on price. But technical ratings were significantly more important than price. The agency could reasonably decide to pay a premium for technically superior proposals.
The Central Intelligence Agency published an RFP seeking support for the agency’s Open Source Enterprise, an organization within the intelligence community that collects, exploits, and disseminates publicly available information. The RFP contemplated award of multiple IDIQ contracts. Several offerors, including QVine Corporation and Digital Age Experts, LLC (DAE), submitted proposals. While QVine and DAE submitted lower-priced proposals, the CIA found that other higher-rated, higher-priced proposals offered a better value. QVine and DAE were not selected for award. Both filed GAO protests.
QVine alleged that the CIA erroneously assigned a significant weakness to its proposal for not addressing how the company would integrate identity and access management solutions. QVine acknowledged that its proposal mistakenly failed to address identity and access management services, but the company asserted that this was a minor error that could be easily fixed. GAO found this argument amounted to disagreement with the agency regarding the significance of QVine’s omission. The company had not demonstrated that the assessment was unreasonable.
QVine and DAE asserted that the agency misapplied evaluation criteria. The RFP stated that [t]he use of commercially available technological solutions will be preferred over custom built solutions.” The protester contended that the CIA failed to downgrade of penalize awardees that proposed customized platforms.
But GAO rejected the protester’s interpretation of the RFP. The CIA was not required to assign higher or lower ratings based on whether a solution was commercially available or customized. The solicitation stated that commercially available systems were preferred, not that customized systems would be downgraded. Instead, the RFP established various performance, functionality, and availability objectives. Offerors were not evaluated simply on whether they proposed a customized solution. Instead, the CIA evaluated the extent to which their proposal achieved potentially competing objectives.
Both protesters also challenged the agency’s determination that the awardees’ prices were reasonable. Essentially, they contended that that the awardees had proposed much higher prices for the same type of work and thus those prices could not be reasonable.
GAO, however, saw no reason to question the price reasonableness determination. The RFP stated that the price evaluation would include a comparison of offerors’ prices along with the causes of differences between proposed prices. The record showed that the CIA divided offerors’ technical approach into different categories and compared each price with its proposed approach and to a government estimate. The evaluation was thus consistent with the RFP. GAO declined to conduct its own price reasonableness assessment.
Finally, the protesters’ objected to the best value tradeoff, contending that the CIA focused too much on technical ratings and did not give sufficient consideration to price difference. GAO reasoned that the solicitation provided that technical was the most important evaluation factor, and that cost/price was significantly less important. It was clear from the record that SSA was aware of and properly documented strengths, weaknesses, and associated cost/prices.
QVine is represented by G. Matthew Koehl, Kelley P. Doran, Gary J. Campbell, and Lidiya Kurin of Womble Bond Dickinson (US), LLP. DAE is represented by C. Peter Dungan and Holly Drumheller Butler of Miles & Stockbridge PC. Intervenor Novetta, Inc. is represented by Samantha S. Lee, Brian G. Walsh, Gary S. Ward, Moshe B. Broder, and Nicole E. Giles of Wiley LLP. Intervenor Next Tier Concepts is represented by Jason A. Carey, J. Hunter Bennett, Kevin T. Barnett, Andrew R. Guy, and Darby Rourik of Covington & Burling LLP. Intervenor BTI360 is represented by Laurel A. Hockey, David S. Cohen, Daniel J. Strouse, and John J. O-Brien of Cordatis, LLP. Intervenor Asymmetrik is represented by Craig A. Holman, Kara L. Daniels, Thomas A. Pettit, and James R. Mestichelli of Arnold & Porter Kaye Sholer LLP. The agency is represented Lindsay Windsor, Dana E. Koffman, and Avi M. Baldinger of the Central Intelligence Agency. GAO attorneys Glenn G. Wolcott and Christina Sklarew participated in the preparation of the decision.
