April 10, 2009 
CBCA 1509 
HOUCK LIMITED, 
Appellant, 
v. 
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, 
Respondent. 
Chad A. Readler and Grant W. Garber of Jones Day, Columbus, OH, counsel for 
Appellant. 
Brian Reed and Larry Stunkel, Chicago Office of Regional Counsel, Department of 
Veterans Affairs, Hines, IL; and Phil Kauffman and Phillipa L. Anderson, Office of General 
Counsel, Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC, counsel for Respondent. 
DANIELS , Board Judge (Chairman). 
ORDER 
The appellant, Houck Limited (Houck), holds an indefinite quantity contract with the 
respondent, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for the provision of vocational 
rehabilitation and employment services to service-connected disabled veterans.  The contract 
contains numerous contract line items (CLINs) and sub-contract line items (sub-CLINs), 
each for a specific kind of service. Each CLIN and sub-CLIN contains a unit price; under 
the contract, whenever VA orders one of those units, it pays Houck the specified price. 
CLINs and sub-CLINs are included for a base year and each of four option years. 

  
 
   
     
 
 
         
  
    
   
       
 
  
        
    
    
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On March 24, 2009, Houck filed a Motion for Confidential Treatment of Case 
Management Task Orders and Price Schedules.  On March 26, Houck supplemented this 
motion with a List of Appeal File Documents to be Marked in Accordance with the 
Protective Order. Houck has since withdrawn from its appeal file all documents addressed 
in the portion of the motion involving case management task orders.  Thus, the remaining 
question before the Board is whether to grant confidential treatment to price schedules by 
permitting them to remain where Houck has placed them, under the protective order issued 
by us in this case.  The documents at issue include the CLIN and sub-CLIN prices in Houck’s 
contract; the CLIN and sub-CLIN prices in the contract of a company with a parallel contract 
to Houck’s, but for a different region, C. J. Turner; and the “Base Cost per Case 
Assumptions” pertaining to Houck’s contract. 
VA opposes Houck’s motion.  The agency maintains that the Federal Acquisition 
Regulation (FAR) requires the disclosure of unit prices in awarded contracts.  It cites in 
support of its position numerous decisions of district courts and courts of appeals in which 
agency determinations to disclose contract pricing information under the Freedom of 
Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552 (FOIA), were permitted.  Houck contends that because VA 
has acknowledged its intention to re-solicit in the near future for offers to perform the same 
services, and will likely terminate Houck’s contract and all parallel contracts, disclosure of 
the price schedules in Houck’s contract would be highly prejudicial to Houck.  It would, 
according to the appellant, alert other potential offerors to the prices they would have to offer 
in order to underbid Houck.  The appellant cites in support of its position decisions of the 
General Services Board of Contract Appeals (GSBCA) regarding disclosure of unit prices 
in the context of protests of contract awards. Houck considers most of the FOIA decisions 
cited by VA to be irrelevant, but urges us to follow two of them, Chemical Waste 
Management, Inc. v. O’Leary , Civ. A. No. 94-2230, 1995 WL 115894 (D.D.C. Feb. 28, 
1995), and McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. United States Department of the Air Force , 375 
F.3d 1182 (D.C. Cir. 2004). 
Each side’s position has some merit.  The FAR provides that soon after contract 
award, a contracting officer shall provide to unsuccessful offerors notification which “shall 
include . . . [t]he items, quantities, and any stated unit prices of each award.”  Even where 
“the number of items or other factors makes listing any stated unit prices impracticable at that 
time,” “the items, quantities, and any stated unit prices of each award shall be made publicly 
available, upon request.” 48 CFR 15.503(b)(1)(iv) (2007).  In light of this directive, it is 
clear that the unit prices contained in Houck’s contract for the base year -- the only year for 
which a contract has been awarded -- are public information.  R & W Flammann GmbH v. 
United States , 339 F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2003).  They must therefore be removed from the 
protective order. 

  
 
   
  
  
  
  
     
    
      
    
 
 
 
   
     
             
    
   
 
3 CBCA 1509 
On the other hand, as the GSBCA decisions make clear, in the context of protests, 
while contract awards are in dispute and the potential exists for continued competition in the 
contested procurements, unit prices should remain confidential because their disclosure could 
be prejudicial to an offeror’s opportunities to succeed in the competition.  TRI-COR 
Industries, Inc. , GSBCA 10886-P, 91-1 BCA ¶ 23,462 (1990); Federal Sources, Inc. , 
GSBCA 9082-P, 87-3 BCA ¶ 20,200.  Similarly, in the case of options, the Government has 
not yet decided whether to continue the contract, see International Telephone & Telegraph, 
ITT Defense Communications Division v. United States , 453 F.2d 1283, 1291 (Ct. Cl. 1972), 
so the potential exists for competition for the requirements covered by the option periods. 
Disclosure of unit prices could be prejudicial to the contractor’s opportunities to succeed in 
the competition. For this reason, disclosure of those prices has been precluded in the context 
of FOIA litigation.  Canadian Commercial Corp. v. Department of the Air Force , 514 F.3d 
37, 42 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (in applying the test set out in National Parks & Conservation Ass’n 
v. Morton, 498 F.2d 765, 770 (D.C. Cir. 1974), court determined that disclosure would have 
been “likely . . . to cause substantial harm to the competitive position of the person from 
whom the information was obtained”); McDonnell Douglas , 375 F.3d 1182, 1189 (same); 
Chemical Waste (same).
1   The Board does not have jurisdiction to hear FOIA cases, see  5 
U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B)-(G) (2006), and those cases involve somewhat different issues from 
this one -- disclosure of requested information, not shielding of information in case files from 
public access -- but we find the cited FOIA decisions to be instructive.  Additionally, we note 
that the case before us involves base year pricing only; the option year pricing does not 
appear to have any impact on this dispute, so restricting it from public view will not affect 
access to our proceedings.   Accordingly, we allow the option year CLIN and sub-CLIN 
prices in Houck’s contract, and in C. J. Turner’s parallel contract, to remain under our 
protective order. 
We permit the “Base Cost per Case Assumptions” pertaining to Houck’s contract to 
remain under the protective order as well.  Houck appears to be correct in asserting that this 
document shows how the contractor derived its unit prices, so disclosing the document would 
1 In Flammann, the Court held proper the agency’s determination to disclose the 
contractor’s option year prices even though the options were not exercised and a competition 
was to be conducted to fill the agency’s requirements in the option years.  That case had a 
significant difference from ours and the cited FOIA cases, however.  Flammann involved a 
sealed bid procurement, and the prices were already in the public domain because they had 
been disclosed during bid opening. Here and elsewhere, the contracts were awarded through 
negotiated procurements, and the FAR does not require disclosure of prices for unawarded 
option years in those procurements. 

 
           
           
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4 CBCA 1509 
be likely to cause substantial harm to Houck’s competitive position, especially in the 
competition to provide in the future services which are included in the current contract. 
Houck placed under the protective order its Statement in Support of Confidential 
Protection of Price Schedules and “Base Cost per Case Assumptions” Page.  The reason 
given for this placement is that the Statement contains certain information provided by 
counsel for VA which may be confidential.  Agency counsel has informed us that the 
information in question has been made public. Consequently, the Statement is not 
appropriately placed under the protective order and must be removed from it. 
STEPHEN M. DANIELS 
Board Judge