United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

Comptroller General

of the United States

 

Decision 

Matter of: Futurecom, Inc. 

File: B-400730.2 

Date: February 23, 2009 

Bruce Herbin for the protester. 

Lt. Col. Won K. Lee, Department of the Air Force, for the agency. 

Katherine I. Riback, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General 

Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

Past performance provision in solicitation that limits past performance references to 

those performed within the past 3 years is consistent with Federal Acquisition 

Regulation (FAR) § 15.305(a)(2)(i), which requires that the currency of past 

performance be evaluated, and is not unduly restrictive of competition, particularly 

given the requirement in FAR § 15.305(a)(2)(iv) that offerors with no current or 

relevant past performance may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past 

performance. 

DECISION 

Futurecom, Inc. of Oviedo, Florida, protests the terms of an amendment to request 

for proposals (RFP) No. FA8519-08-R-26542, issued by the Department of the Air 

Force for the general repair of T-10 noise suppressors, otherwise known as hush 

houses. The protester contends that past performance provisions in the RFP 

amendment unduly restrict competition and exceed the agency’s needs. 

We deny the protest. 

The Air Force issued the RFP for the general repair of hush houses, setting forth two 

evaluation factors: price and past performance. Award was made to Vital Link, Inc. 

on September 30, 2008, and after receiving a debriefing, Futurecom protested the 

award. Among other things, Futurecom contended that the RFP did not request past 

performance information, so that the award was improper. 

In response, the agency stated that it would take the corrective action of amending 

the past performance evaluation criteria, giving offerors an opportunity to revise 
their past performance information, re-evaluating the past performance information 

received, and making a new contract award if necessary. On November 21, our 

Office dismissed the protest as academic in light of the agency’s proposed corrective 

action. 

On December 8, the Air Force issued an amendment to the RFP that requested 

present and past performance information. Specifically, the solicitation requested 

that offerors provide a separate “Past Performance FACTS Sheet” for each active or 

completed contract “in the past three (3) years, that the offeror considers relevant in 

demonstrating its ability to perform the proposed effort.” RFP amend. 1 at 3. The 

amendment also stated that offerors that did not “possess relevant corporate past 

performance should submit FACTS Sheets for three (3) of their most recent/relevant 

contracts/efforts demonstrating the present and past performance for each of their 

key personnel.” Id. 

Futurecom filed the present protest on December 18, in which it argues that the 

requirement to submit past performance information limited to the past 3 years is 

unduly restrictive because it would be very difficult for any offeror other than Vital 

Link to provide relevant past performance information for the past 3 years in that 

Vital Link has been the only contractor providing these services to the Air Force in 

recent years. Protest at 2. Futurecom asks that the agency eliminate the 3-year 

recency requirement regarding the past performance information to be submitted by 

the offerors. 

We find that the past performance requirements included in the RFP amendment are 

unobjectionable. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) § 15.305(a)(2)(i), which is 

applicable to this procurement, provides that “[the] currency and relevance of the 

information” regarding past performance shall be considered in the past 

performance evaluation. Consistent with this FAR section, the Air Force explains 

that the solicitation language requesting past performance information from the 

contractors is standard language based on the Air Force Past Performance 

Evaluation Guide (PPEG) IG5315.305(a)(2)(at 7) that provides that 3 years is the 

standard time period to define “currency” of past performance to be considered in 

the evaluation of proposals. Moreover, consistent with FAR § 15.305(a)(2)(iii), the 

RFP amendment provides that offerors, which do not have current and relevant past 

performance, can reference “contracts/efforts demonstrating the present and past 

performance for each of their key personnel.” RFP amend. 1 at 3. Finally, the 

proposals of offerors, who have no current (within the past 3 years) or relevant past 

performance, as defined by the RFP, cannot be rejected as unacceptable because 

they lack current or relevant past performance, but “may not be evaluated favorably 

or unfavorably on past performance” and will be provided an “unknown confidence 

rating.” RFP amend. 1 at 4; FAR § 15.305(a)(2)(iv); Kalman & Co., Inc., B-287442.2, 

Mar. 21, 2002, 2002 CPD ¶ 63 at 8 (agency reasonably evaluated a proposal under a 

past performance evaluation factor as “neutral” where it found that the offeror 

lacked current relevant past performance). Because the performance evaluation 

criteria included in the RFP amendment are consistent with applicable regulations 

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and do not preclude Futurecom from submitting a proposal, we find no basis to 

object to this amendment.1 

The protester also argues that the agency improperly widened its corrective action 

from what it initially stated when it asked in this amendment for staffing information 

and other various miscellaneous current data. Although the protester does not 

clearly state which provisions it is complaining about here, we presume this 

allegation concerns the request in paragraph I of the “FACTS Sheet” that offerors 

identify the individuals who will participate in the proposed effort on this acquisition 

who also participated in each of the contracts/efforts that were identified as past 

performance references. RFP amend. 1, attach. 1, Past Performance FACTS Sheet, 

at 2. The information requested by the agency here is clearly pertinent to the past 

performance evaluation. 

The protest is denied. 

Gary L. Kepplinger 

General Counsel 

1

 The Air Force reports that it has received four proposals, including Futurecom’s, in 

response to the RFP, and the information provided “identifies both prime 

contractors and subcontracts other than Vital Link who have provided performance 

on the T-10 Hush.” Agency Report, exh. 5, Contracting Officer’s Declaration, at 2.