A recently filed bid protest alleges the U.S. Army ignored President Trump's explicit directives to eliminate wasteful government spending. Florida-based Continuity Global Solutions (CGS) argues that despite executive orders mandating that federal agencies eliminate unnecessary expenditures, the Army has awarded a lucrative security contract to a German company, Pond Security Services GmbH, instead of an American company, which offered the same services for $128 million less.
The controversy centers on an Army solicitation seeking armed security for American military bases and personnel overseas.
CGS submitted a $1.002 billion proposal. German competitor Pond GmbH bid $1.131 billion—a difference of roughly $128 million. While the Solicitation stated that “all non-price factors, when combined, are approximately equal in importance to price”—meaning that price was the single most important factor in the competition—the Army initially awarded the contract to the more expensive German firm.
CGS filed a bid protest with the Court of Federal Claims, arguing that the Army had applied unstated evaluation criteria when assessing past performance. The court agreed, finding that the Army had required past performance references to be both performed for the Department of Defense AND performed in Germany—criteria not specified in the original solicitation. As a result of this error, the Army determined that some of CGS's past performance references were merely "Relevant," rather than "Very Relevant," which gave Pond GmbH an unfair advantage.
The court ordered the Army to reevaluate both companies' proposals and make a new award decision. However, when the Army reevaluated, it reached the same conclusion and again selected Pond GmbH's higher-priced proposal.
CGS has now challenged the Army's second award decision in a protest before the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
First, the company argues that the Army improperly downgraded price, the solicitation's most important evaluation factor. Under federal procurement law, agencies must conduct "best value" tradeoffs according to the stated evaluation scheme in their solicitations. Here, the solicitation established price as the paramount consideration. However, CGS contends that the Army ignored this requirement by allowing Pond GmbH's higher technical rating to justify paying a $128 million premium. CGS argues this "unreasonable tradeoff" violates the stated evaluation methodology and gives Pond GmbH credit for the same advantage twice—once in the technical evaluation and again as justification for the higher price.
Second, CGS alleges that the past performance is still flawed and that the Army disregarded the Court of Federal Claims' previous decision regarding unstated criteria. Despite the court's clear ruling that the Army applied unstated criteria, the new award decision does not indicate that the Army corrected this error. None of CGS's seven past performance references changed ratings, including those specifically identified by the court as having been improperly downgraded. CGS reasons that if the Army had properly evaluated its references, some of them would have qualified as "Very Relevant, which would have elevated CGS's overall past performance confidence rating—potentially making CGS the clear winner given its massive price advantage.
The Court of Federal Claims already determined that correcting the unstated criteria would give CGS "a substantial chance of being selected for award." By failing to implement the court's decision, CGS reasons, the Army has perpetuated the same prejudicial errors.
CGS contends that awarding this contract to a foreign company at a $128 million premium contradicts President Trump's mandate to eliminate wasteful spending and prioritize American taxpayers' interests. It asks GAO to sustain the protest and recommend that the Army reevaluate proposals and make a new award decision that is consistent with the solicitation.