Protest alleging organizational conflict of interest and challenging the agency’s past performance and price evaluations is denied. The protester alleged that the awardee had a conflict because, as part of its performance of another contract, it had access to the protester’s prices. GAO, however, found no conflict because it was unlikely the protester had access to the protester’s prices. To obtain those prices, the awardee would have had to hand inspect thousands of invoices, which would have been a massive undertaking. The protester also asserted that the agency erred in finding the awardee’s past performance references relevant. But the solicitation did not specifically define the metrics used to determine relevance. In this case, the awardee’s references were relevant enough. Finally, the protester alleged the price realism analysis was flawed. GAO found the awardee’s price was in line with the agency’s benchmark.
The Department of Agriculture (DOA) published a solicitation seeking property and asset management services associated with single-family housing on rural properties. Eleven offerors, including Mortgage Contracting Services, LLC (MCS) and Information Systems and Networks Corporation (ISN), submitted proposals. DOA awarded the contract to ISN.
MCS protested, challenging the evaluation and alleging that ISN had an organizational conflict of interest. DOA took corrective action to investigate the alleged conflict. DOA concluded there was no conflict and re-awarded the contract to ISN. MCS filed another protest.
MCS alleged that DOA failed to conduct an adequate investigation of the OCI. MCS contended that ISN had another contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). As part of the HUD contract, ISN reviewed invoices submitted MCS for property management services the company performed on HUD’s single-family properties. MCS claimed that access to this information allowed ISN to learn of MCS property management prices, which gave it a competitive advantage for the DOA solicitation.
GAO, however found that DOA had meaningfully investigated the conflict and reasonably concluded that the access to MCS’s pricing had not resulted in a competitive advantage. In its role on the HUD contract, ISN handled thousands upon thousands of claims. MCS’s claims were only a fraction of those ISN reviewed. To discern MCS’s prices, ISN would have to hand review thousands and identify which of them belonged to MCS’s vendors. Data-mining these claim to identify MCS-related information would have been too massive of an undertaking to be useful. Indeed, GAO noted, the effort would have been unnecessary given that MCS’s pricing information was already publicly available from other agencies’ price catalogs. What’s more, access to MCS’s invoice information was limited to ISN personnel who had no involvement in the proposal effort.
Next, MCS contended that DOA failed to evaluate ISN’s proposal in accordance with the evaluation criteria. MCS asserted that ISN violated solicitation instructions by not specifying the percentage of work proposed for its subcontractor in the price/cost proposal. GAO found, however, that this was a minor omission that did not materially affect the evaluation. The price evaluation criteria did not even require the agency to evaluate this information.
MCS also argued that as part of the past performance evaluation, DOA failed to assess whether offerors fulfilled small business contracting goals during performance of prior contracts. GAO noted that while the record showed that the agency did not evaluate the offerors record on small business subcontracting goals, MCS had not been prejudiced by this failure. Although the solicitation mentioned small business subcontracting goals, it did not require offerors to include this information in their proposals. ISN had not submitted information on its small business goals, but this did not violate the solicitation.
MCS complained that DOA found two of the contracts that ISN submitted as past performance references relevant. ISN alleged the contracts were either (1) a small fraction of the effort contemplated by the solicitation, (2) involved work that was different from the work required by the solicitation.
But GAO noted that the solicitation provided for an evaluation of offerors’ overall record of past performance. Contrary to MCS’s contentions, the solicitation did not provide specific size details or what metrics would be used to assess whether a past contract was similar. The solicitations did not require offerors to have experience with the exact type of property perseveration and inspection services detailed in the performance work statement. Rather, it merely required similar services. While ISN’s contract were dissimilar in some respects, its overall past performance and experience supported DOA’s ratings.
Lastly, MCS challenged DOA’s price realism analysis, arguing that the agency engaged in a perfunctory, mechanical comparison of prices against an arbitrary estimate. GAO, however, found that the agency compared ISN’s prices to two benchmarks. While the company’s price was lower than one benchmark, it was largely in line with the other. While MCS argued that the benchmarks did not reflect prices, GAO found the argument unsupported.
MCS is represented by Gregory S. Jacobs and Erin L. Felix of Polsinelli PC. The intervenor, ISN, is represented by Matthew T. Schoonover and John M. Mattox II of Schoonover & Moriarty LLC. The agency is represented by Elin M. Dugan of the Department of Agriculture. GAO attorneys Alexander O. Levine and Jennifer D. Westfall-McGrail participated in the preparation of the decision.
