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Protest challenging agency’s best value determination is sustained. The agency awarded IDIQ contracts to offerors with the highest rated proposals under the non-price factors. GAO found this mechanical tradeoff analysis unreasonable. The agency failed to qualitatively consider the proposals’ technical approach in light of proposed prices. In fact, the agency failed to meaningfully consider offerors prices at all. The Competition in Contracting Act requires agencies to consider price in selecting proposals for award. An agency may not minimize the impact of price to make it merely a nominal evaluation factor.

The Department of Justice issued an RFP for information technology support services. The RFP contemplated the award of multiple IDIQ contracts. DOJ anticipated awarded some contracts on an unrestricted basis and others to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.

DOJ initially awarded five unrestricted contracts. Two unsuccessful offerors, MetroStar Systems, Inc, and Perspecta Enterprise Solutions, LLC, filed GAO protests challenging the awards. GAO sustained the MetroStar protest, finding that DOJ had improperly credited two awardees with certification under International Standards Organization (ISO) 9001. GAO denied the Perspecta protest, reasoning that while DOJ had made errors in its evaluation, those errors had not prejudiced Perspecta.

Following the protest decisions, DOJ reevaluated proposals. This time, DOJ awarded unrestricted contracts to seven companies. Perspecta filed a second protest. Additionally, two other unsuccessful offerors, Qbase, LLC and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, filed protests.

The protesters first challenged exchanges that DOJ conducted with two awardees, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) and SRA International, after the previous, MetroStar protest. In that protest, GAO had found that DOJ had unreasonably determined that BAH and SRA had ISO 9001 certification. It appeared that BAH’s and SRA’s certification applied to their affiliates’—instead of their own—quality management systems. Following the MetroStar decision, DOJ conducted exchanges with BAH and SRA to clarify whether the certification referenced in their proposals applied to the companies’ own quality management systems. The protesters contended that these exchanges amounted to unequal discussions because BAH and SRA were allowed to remedy material omissions from their proposals.

GAO, however, found that the exchanges were clarifications. Neither BAH nor SRA had been permitted to revise their proposals. Rather, each was simply asked to verify unclear information in its proposal—that is, whether the certifications in their proposals applied to their own quality management systems. The fact that clarifying information was required did not mean that BAH’s and SRA’s proposals were noncompliant; it simply meant they were unclear.

Still, the protesters argued that even if the exchanges were not discussions, BAH and SRA had failed to establish that they actually possessed the required certifications. GAO disagreed finding that SRA had adequately explained that it shared a quality management system with its parent. Likewise, BAH had sufficiently explained that its certificate had been issued in the name of one of its program offices.

Perspecta and Northrop Grumman challenged the evaluation of another awardee, CACI’s, corporate experience and past performance. In the MetroStar protest, GAO had concluded that DOJ had unreasonably credited CACI for references submitted by an affiliate. As a result of that decision, when DOJ reevaluated CACI, it excluded the referenced affiliates from consideration and only evaluated CACI based on one remaining reference. The protesters claimed that CACI should have been excluded for failing to meet solicitation requirements. The RFP required three past performance reference and five past performance questionnaires. With its affiliates excluded, CACI failed to meet those requirements.

But GAO found that the DOJ reasonably accounted for CACI’s failure to submit all the required references by downgrading CACI’s past performance. Although the RFP required five past performance questionnaires, it also accounted for the possibility of an evaluation based on less than five. Moreover, while the RFP required three past performance references, DOJ had considered the risks stemming from the fact that CACI only provided one reference. Indeed, DOJ had assigned a weakness and risk as a result.

Northrop Grumman alleged that DOJ had disparately evaluated its proposal. Northrop Grumman alleged that two awardees had received major strengths for proposing that their personnel would be available on day one of the contract. Northrop Grumman claimed that it had also proposed to make its personnel available on day one but had not received a strength. DOJ posited that Northrop Grumman had actually pledged a 60-day transition period. But GAO found nothing in the record to suggest that this was the reason Northrop Grumman had not been credited with a strength. GAO found that DOJ had failed to reasonably explain the evaluation of Northrop Grumman and sustained the protest on these grounds.

Northrop Grumman also contended that awardees had been assigned a strength for proposing a web developer with extensive experience. Northrop Grumman asserted that it had also proposed a web developer with extensive experience but had not been assigned a strength. GAO found that DOJ had failed to challenge the substance of this protest ground and thus sustained this argument, too.

Perspecta argued that DOJ had failed to implement GAO’s recommended corrective action to correct evaluation errors identified in the previous protests. GAO, however, noted that the details of implementing GAO recommendations are left to the discretion of an agency, and GAO will not question an agency’s compliance. While the GAO made recommendations in the MetroStar decision, none of the protesters in this case had been parties to that protest. Additionally, none of the findings in that previous protest related to the protesters in this protest.

Lastly, the protester’s challenged DOJ’s best value determination. They argued that the tradeoff analysis was unreasonable because DOJ failed to conduct a tradeoff between lower-rated, lower-priced proposals and higher-rated, higher-priced proposals.

GAO agreed with the protesters. A source selection decision cannot be based on a mechanical comparison of technical ratings but must rest upon a qualitative assessment of the underlying technical differences among proposals. An agency cannot eliminate a technically acceptable proposal from consideration without taking into account the relative cost of the proposal to the government.

Here, the record indicated that DOJ mechanically made award to offerors who had the highest adjectival ratings under the non-price factors. Price was not considered in any meaningful way. In fact, the evaluators had noted that actual costs would be determined through subsequent task order competitions, so they declined to really consider offerors’ proposed prices. GAO reasoned that any agency may not so minimize the impact of price to make it merely a nominal evaluation factor. The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 requires that price be considered in selection proposals for award. There requirement is not negated just because the selected awardees will have later compete for task orders under the awarded contract. DOJ’s mechanical tradeoff analysis that failed to consider price was unreasonable.

Qbase is represented by Richard J. Conway, Adam Proujansky, and Michael J. Slattery of Blank Rome LLP. Perspecta is represented by Daniel R. Forman, Eric M. Ransom, James G. Peyster, and William B. O’Reilly of Crowell & Moring LLP. Northrop Grumman is represented by Richard A. Sauber, Deneen J. Melander, and Courtney L. Millian of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber LLP. Intervenor, MetroStar Systems is represented by James Y. Boland and Christopher G. Griesedieck of Venable LLP. Intervenor Booz Allen Hamilton is represented by Gary J. Campbell, G. Matthew Koehl, and Lidya Kurin of Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP. Intervenor SRA is represented by Carla J. Weiss and Noah B. Bleicher of Jenner & Block, LLP. The agency is represented by Andrew J. Baker and Christopher Radcliffe of the Department of Justice. GAO attorneys Alexander O. Levine, Sarah T. Zaffina, and Jennifer D. Westfall-McGrail participated in the preparation of the decision.