responsibility determination the dismissal of which claim on the basis of lack of standing by the court of and all claims was a misapplication of appropriate legal standard and well why don't you i think that critical to your argument is this concept of whether you revived or withdrew your offer i think that's critical to the entire outcome in this case so so if you wouldn't mind jumping right to that and tell us why the court a crime federal was wrong in it fact finding that you had in fact not reinstated in five i don't even know what word to use but your offer we would characterize as revive as as described in the can and shipping court case the happy to turn to that if and however i would like to have standing is an interested party for standing for jurisdictional purposes the court instead turn to these two part jurisdictional test within the court of federal claims and went to the merits of the issue with regard to the with regard to our second claim the fact of our expiration of our proposal and failure to revive so it is or is which position that in fact it is not necessary for this court to look to the to the merits of the case with regard to the first part the first count of dismissal based on lack of standing responsibility different determination by the contracting officer the off the government would be obligated to rebid the contract and appellant could compete for the contract once again under these circumstances the appellant has and also gets on the interview which would have been what were the circumstances i don't recall impressed i think i remember it didn't involve a withdrawn offer but what was the argument about the competitor standing i don't the court of federal claims correctly held with did not respond to the question asked the question was asked for someone was other than the contract officer where there is no express delegation of authority within the record itself that indicates this person had the authority to make this question second but wendy regardless of whether that person the authority is in the case or i don't know the slot very well but i think that when you make an offer it's only good for a certain window of time can you tell me what that window was here the window of time listing the station part in the far clause fifty two to twelve dash one part twelve is thirty days say but it does not state that the wouldn't you give an offer to the government and they do nothing and three years later they say ah i accept you do what i mean it's in the benefit of the contractor as well as the government to have a discrete time period like that so that the contractor knows the government can't  come back and accept an offer of years down the road that would be not any longer advantageous to the contractor absolutely that is the intent of the statute of the of the regulatory requirement in the case have clearly shown that is intended to protect contracts so it was clear under these facts then that by the time that government official came and asked whether your proposed pricing was still valid and could it be maintained as valid until march of two thousand and fifteen it was well beyond the solicitation thirty day window it was like two hundred days in or two hundred plus you're on the start all so clearly two hundred days in and there's no way you could have been bound to the proposal that you submit it you'd have to confirm it that is correct or are ok so you have to co rm it so she comes to you and says are you still willing to be bound by your proposal and your response in was what what was your response i think it was you know we would want it has  month it's been two hundred fourteen days since our proposal was submitted we dissociates want and need to submit a final proposal revision with updated rates given the economic conditions why i'm sorry if they accept you have an offer and either you have an acceptance or rejection or a counter offer we provide if i did was make a counteroffer we'd like a higher updated rates given the economic conditions isn't it reasonable i mean i have to review the lower court for substantial effort and i don't have products there i don't have carte blanche to do any kind of to nova review so why isn't there substantial evidence for her to have found that when you say you want to need to submit a final proposal with updated rates given the economic conditions why isn't it reasonable for her to have concluded that that meant you were going to raise or change your r given the change in the economic climate i don't get to do it they know i have to you know put my thumb on the scale in favor of what she decided consider fact absolute your honor and i think that's what's clear here is that if you look at the history of the  and i would suggest that in light of the general nature of the relationship that if if there was any question as to whether or not ms wit was with or whether willing to extend its offer first it was unreasonable for the agen state what you're saying is that we we have a course of conduct which we believe supported that determination that they would have changed their position but you're also saying there's of course the conduct in which they didn't change their position and that seems to have at least be enough to support the judge opining that they wouldn't have so if the standard is that they could have revived their who was apparently the one who was it was given the authority to make this inquiry which was not responded to which did attempt to revive its offer by communicating with the agency the agency's refusal or inability to actually respond to which requ government for a contractor that had been in place for over sixteen years successfully performed on the contracts preceding and more work through as as we discussed multiple of years of pro tax preparation recent missions and communications with the agency did they felt they did not need to respond and therefore did not let's hear from the other side o interview warning in may please the court which offer expired and was not revived wit made a business decision it was asked expressly whether it was stand by the prices and its offer and it never said ye interested in standing by the terms of that offer when it was asked that question it said it wanted and needed to submit revised pricing on december twenty third twenty fourteen and that reinforce that message and subsequent e mails at a five zero nine and a five twelve of the record hasn't spurred the e mails from which president saying again emphasizing a need to submit revised pricing and the trial quirk in back to the court the judge's question about the standard of review here the trial court the factual finding was not clearly erroneous that it was difficult as she wrote in her opinion difficult to interpret with e mail in any other way than as a negative response to the question that had been posed by the navy now which principal argument for this court is that well indeed we did want to revive our offer and trust us there may not be anything in the record but that's not obviously not sufficient in a record review case and also this notion of an abstract interest in the competition is what they're relying on what we were clearly interested based on our past conduct and this bridge this contract had been in existence for a long period of time that again is not sufficient because what the case law says and i would draw the court's attention to the international graphics case in particular that words  conduct to revive a bid must indicate that you are willing to accept on the terms of the offer and submit it so merely being interested in it in the contract or in the procurement of some sort of abstract sense is really not sufficient situation where you have contracting officer i dealing with these offerers but what's important to emphasize and getting to i think perhaps the drugs question is there was an equal treatment of these awful wars and that the very same question was posed at the exact same fact is the trial for noted that was approved prudent decision to make at the time because this protest had been pending for so long number one but also with had made it clear in its e mail according to the navy that it was not willing to stand by the terms of its offer but the final decision of the chairman to be more a decision was still pending so it was appropriate in that circumstance for the navy to continue those deliberations but i do want to emphasize again that the obligation the truck but also noted on page a twenty three of the record that there is no obligation on the part of the navy to notify wit of something of which it should already be aware that is a term in the solicitation itself that says that your offer is subject to some time has argued in our brief in our submission the appropriate resolution would be to dismiss the protest for lack of standing because this case doesn't really fall within the same type of factual scenarios this court is confronted in other big protests where a party fails to particular it withdrew from the competition those cases demonstrate the same proposition here in the championship incapable cases directly on point in that regard where you had an expired offer which meant that that offer no longer had  economic interest now i want to address the argument that it makes now which is that it nevertheless had standing to argue the responsibility determination and it is relying on a process first of all that is an these are two brothers fighting so it's kind of a crazy situation but also by the way want to know if it's the same smoot that they measure the harvard bridge with i don't know if they're aware of this but perhaps someone in their family or by the same name lays down every year in the harbor bridge situation where obviously they waited nine months to have this contract and then after they asked whether you keep your bid open till march fifteenth there was lots of time to allow the other side to submit the revised pricing and given that they were the incumbent who had been doing this work for many many many years and given that their proposal i mean any contracting officer could have looked at their only do proponents of the rules and one of them is theirs was forty percent than the other one why in the world didn't the government say sure you could submit europe to pricing i mean march fifteenth was how many months away from when the request was sent to them about whether they would maintain the same pric down the road or whatever so why did the will not let them i mean they're just talking about revising their pricing i can imagine it takes very long to do and given that their proposal was forty percent less than the other one i guess i kind of feel like you're not spending my tax dollars very well in this case because you had an incumbent that there's no evidence the record was doing a poor job and was offering to continue doing the same job at forty percent less and was saying well i might i'm going to probably raise my rates a little bit your honor i can only speak to what's in the administrative record as could the right and so in that regard it is understandable in our submission for the contracting officer and not position to be reticent to take a step that may open itself up to allegations of bias or favoritism accent or if it were for example to engage in some sort of conversation with whit no i'm not suggesting that the contracting officer couldn't have entertained the idea considered it had a conversation sent further emails and certainly that would have been possible but the question and they never did well in tell that you were it was finalized and right your honor there were there was no engaging wit on this the idea of revising its prices but i would point out that number one there was no obligation to entertain that idea after a time i get and i can only speculate into what was marked in the mind of the contracting officer at the time i take your point however what is special deferential standard of review that we're looking at the question really comes due to on the m was the contract was the navy did act rationally and was their interpretation of these e mails and these responses was that rational was it arbitrary and capricious and on that the court reached the right result turning back to the stand in question an interesting and troublesome question as to whether the government's view is that which shouldn't even have a chance to come into court at this stage and i think that  would impress or was building upon because there were unique situations as i recall in a foreign country a lot of strange complications that one then it's not like it were my question for you i turns out that the would be bidders is not excepted has no opportunity to challenge the situation your honor no idea we're not seeking  that where you no longer have a direct economic interest you know under have a surveyor not really an area because if it up what if it came in the court and said yes the offer expired but here the the reasons the offer expired which to make it an invalid exploration they would have standing to make that argument but they not well that is very circumstance dependent but what you're being asked is are you seeking a blanket rule in that circumstance and i think the answer is no no i'm not seeking a blanket rule that when i think you're seeking a blanket will with regard to expiration right within the lower court why did they find withdraw what did she find precisely with regard to the offer it wasn't just expired it was expired and and express statement was made that it would not be renewed at that same pricing what she stated what she found as a matter of fact the sufficient showing to make a jurisdictional showing up standing but even if the court disagrees with us on standing it should never be the last term there is no need for remit and i'll make two points on this briefly the first is that in in  order to prevail on any sort of remain this court would have to find that the trial court's conclusion is that finding that there was no substantial chance of obtaining the award was clearly erroneous in order for witt to get this contract the on a remake of the reason for that is prejudicial error of course is a requirement both for purposes of standing and for the merits and a protester needs to demonstrate a substantial chance of the chain in the contract on the what we sam with the department of justice and with the argument they've made we do want to emphasize one issue which is what's responses to the questions and the communications throughout the final time period of this particular moment we contend were clear and we believe the court was was correct trial court was correct in it interpretation which it repeatedly asked to reprice its proposal and it asked questions aimed at determining how much longer it had on its more favorably priced incumbent contract and the contracting officer was reasonable in her determination that they did not wish to stand by their earlier question their earlier price however even if this court finds that that is not the the  reasonable terminations and yet nothing in the record contradicts the contracting officers terminations they may have been interested in awarded this contract but they certainly were not interested in war at any price and not at the price which cannot show as it must that the contracting officers responsibility determination lacked irrational basis and violated procurement regulations and would cannot show on the record as it must that there was an unreasonable responsibility determination that was sufficiently prejudicial to wit the court can't second guess the contracting officer or substitute its judgment for that of the contracting officer where her decision was rational and supported in the record the contracting had broad discretion in looking at responsibility here and she reached a conclusion after considering ample evidence after detailing reasons none of which were contradicted in the evidence in the record she set them forth in writing we have not received any response to our communication below dated december twenty third two thousand and fourteen a five o nine please advise the status of the award we never received a response to our communication advising you that we need to submit revised pricing a five ten the base year ends on march thirty thirty first of march will the current matter be resolved by then what is the status if you'll note in two of those communications we never discussed the fact that we need to send it revised pricing we asked the question very specifically could you answer our question because in fact we did and i think it's important to note that they were never given the opportunity to revive their offer because the government refused to respond ref respond if in fact which had been for you know with your offer is withdrawn because you have refused to extend that would have given the opportunity it wanted to extend and revive and this  communications were indicated were intended to communicate that intent to the agency while in fact it would do not have a chance to in fact revive its offer that is correct in the record you'll see if you look at the response from  apologize for the delay in responding this is a five eleven hopefully the matter will be resolved soon i will talk to the contracting officer to determine what the government will do with the matters not resolved by march thirty first of march hundred fifteen due to the numerous protests we are having to for the packers to head for a preview that would indicate an intent that the government will be getting back to it and the fact that the government kept within the dark and deliberately did so until the actual war of the contract is is in fact the government's error that it was unreasonable for the government to deceive with in that way to see somewhere again it is the incumbent contractor with a substantially lower price it would have been there is every indication that the government would have been advantage