The agency rejected the protester’s proposal because the labor hours in one spreadsheet didn’t match the hours in a different spreadsheet. The COFC said the agency overreacted. The discrepancy between spreadsheets was clearly a minor typo that could’ve been resolved through clarifications.
Aspire Therapy Services & Consultants, Inc., COFC No. 23-253
- Error in Proposal – The agency disqualified the protester for failing to comply with solicitation requirements. The labor hours listed in a spreadsheet in the protester’s cost volume did not match the labor hours in a spreadsheet in the technical volume. The two spreadsheets differed by 30 hours.
- Error Was Minor – The protester argued disqualification was too drastic; the error could’ve been resolved with corrections. The court agreed. It was apparent the discrepancy was a minor clerical error. The hours in the two spreadsheets were only off by one digit and were so similar—2336 hours and 2366 hours—it strongly indicated a typographical error. Additionally, the typographical error could be confirmed by reviewing formulas in the native versions of the spreadsheets, which the protester provided. What’s more, the error was only off by 30 hours, a 1.3 percent difference. This slight error couldn’t have meaningfully impacted the evaluation.
- Protester Didn’t Violate Material Solicitation Provision – The government argued the solicitation stated multiple times that labor hours in each volume must match. Thus, the discrepancy was a material violation of a solicitation requirements, which necessitated disqualification. The court wasn’t convinced. Nothing in the solicitation required that spreadsheets match. The government was merely arguing the protester failed to comply with solicitation instructions. But failure to comply with solicitation instructions does not preclude the government from allowing corrections through clarifications.
- Agency Should Have Sought Clarifications – The FAR provides an agency may engage in clarifications to resolve minor clerical errors. An agency therefore has discretion to engage in clarifications. Here, the court found the agency had abused its discretion by not engaging in clarifications. The error was minor and insignificant to the evaluation. It was a typographical error, rather than a deliberate decision—this was obvious from the face of the proposal. The error was also easily correctable by simply adjusting one digit.
–Case summary by Craig LaChance, Senior Editor
