United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

Comptroller General

of the United States

 

Decision 

Matter of: Computer Cite 

File: B-400830 

Date: February 3, 2009 

Cammy C. Ticknor for the protester. 

Jon M. DeVore, Esq., Birch, Horton, Bittner and Cherot, PC, for SIKU Construction, 

LLC, the intervenor. 

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

Kenneth Kilgour, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, 

GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

1. Protest that award is improper because awardee’s parent company is not 

registered in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) database is denied since 

there is no requirement in the Federal Acquisition Regulation that a potential 

contractor’s parent company be registered in the CCR. 

2. Protest that the agency improperly used an unstated evaluation criterion is denied 

where the statement that gave rise to this protest ground was made by a different 

contracting officer, in connection with a different procurement than the one at issue 

in the protest. 

3. Protest that agency improperly evaluated protester’s proposal for performance 

confidence is denied where the record shows that, even if the protester’s proposal 

had received the highest possible rating for performance confidence, the proposal 

would still have been rated no higher than another lower-priced proposal, and 

therefore there was no competitive prejudice to the protester. 

DECISION 

Computer Cite (CCITE), of San Ramon, California, protests the award of a contract 

to SIKU Construction, LLC, of Anchorage, Alaska, by the Department of the Air 

Force under request for proposals (RFP) No. FA8773-08-R-0084 for operations and 

maintenance (O&M) services at Travis Air Force Base (AFB), California. CCITE 

asserts that SIKU is ineligible for award because SIKU’s parent company is not 

properly registered in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) database, that the 
Air Force employed an unstated evaluation criterion by limiting eligibility for award 

to firms that have previously performed the types of services called for under the 

RFP, and that the Air Force improperly gave the protester’s proposal a performance 

risk rating of “unknown confidence.” 

We deny the protest. 

The Air Force issued the RFP for O&M services in support of the base 

telecommunications system and the medical center telecommunications center at 

Travis AFB on June 13, 2008, with a proposal due date of July 14. The RFP, issued as 

a section 8(a) small business set-aside, included three evaluation criteria: technical, 

past performance, and price. Those offers found technically acceptable would 

receive a performance risk assessment rating based on the offeror’s past 

performance data; this rating was to represent the government’s confidence level 

that the offeror would accomplish the proposed effort. The possible ratings were 

substantial confidence, satisfactory confidence, limited confidence, no confidence, 

and unknown confidence. The agency would select the technically acceptable offer 

representing the best value to the government based on a trade-off between the past 

performance rating and price. RFP at 73. 

The agency received three proposals, including those from the protester and the 

intervenor. The offerors’ proposals, all of which were found to be technically 

acceptable, were rated as follows: 

Offeror Technical Price Performance Confidence

Offeror A Acceptable $1,864,899.71 Limited Confidence 

SIKU Acceptable $1,979,127.72 Substantial Confidence 

CCITE Acceptable $2,058,655.67 Unknown Confidence 

In conducting the source selection decision, the agency decided that the better 

performance confidence rating of SIKU’s higher-priced proposal warranted the 

premium over offeror A’s proposal, Agency Report, Tab 12, Source Selection 

Decision Document at 11, and award was made to SIKU. 

CCITE asserts that SIKU is ineligible to do business with the government because its 

parent company, Harpoon Construction Group, is not registered in the CCR 

database. The requirements for registering in the CCR database are set out in 

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 4.11. Nowhere in that subpart does 

the FAR require that a prospective contractor’s parent company be registered. 

Page 2 B-400830 
Page 3 B-400830 

Rather, the regulations pertain to the offeror itself. See FAR § 4.1102(a) 

(“Prospective contractors must be registered in the CCR database.”); FAR 

§ 4.1103(a)(1) (the contracting officer is to verify that the prospective contractor is 

registered). As the protester recognizes, the record here shows that SIKU is 

registered in the CCR. While CCITE argues that the registration requirement should 

be held to apply to SIKU’s parent company, Harpoon, because SIKU is a whollyowned subsidiary of Harpoon, there is no support in the applicable regulations for 

this position. 

CCITE argues that the Air Force employed an unstated evaluation criterion because 

it limited eligibility for award to those firms that have previously performed the types 

of services called for under the RFP. The protester cites the following statement, 

made by a different contracting officer in connection with a different procurement, 

as the basis of its claim: “The nature, complexity, and criticality of our requirements 

mandate that we only hire companies who have performed this service for us (or 

other [Department of Defense] components) previously.” Air Force Memorandum of 

Law, Attach. 11, Agency Memorandum to Small Business Administration, Oct. 11, 

2008, at 12. The record shows that this statement was made in the course of a 

challenge by CCITE to the Air Force’s use of a particular North American Industry 

Classification System code in a solicitation that is not the subject of this protest; 

nevertheless, CCITE argues that the statement has wider applicability and 

“mandate[s] how offerors are to be evaluated when submitting proposals to the Air 

Force.” Protest at 2. We disagree. There is nothing in the agency’s memorandum on 

which CCITE relies to suggest that the contracting officer there was referring to 

anything other than the Air Force’s procurement strategy for that specific, contested 

solicitation. Any speculation to the contrary does not form a valid basis of protest. 

All Phase Servs., Inc., B-294640, B-294640.2, Dec. 1, 2004, 2005 CPD ¶ 129 at 7. 

The protester also challenges the agency’s performance confidence rating of the 

protester’s proposal as “unknown confidence.” We need not resolve this issue 

because the record shows that there was no prejudice to CCITE arising from any 

alleged evaluation error in this area. Even if the protester prevailed on this protest 

ground and received the highest possible performance confidence rating, its price 

would still be higher than the awardee’s and its rating would be the same. From the 

record, we see no reasonable possibility that the contracting officer would have 

selected CCITE’s higher-priced proposal instead of SIKU’s equally-rated, lowerpriced proposal. See American Cybernetic Corp., B-310551.2, Feb. 1, 2008, 2008 CPD 

¶ 40 at 3. Prejudice is an essential element of every viable protest, and where, as 

here, none is shown or is otherwise evident, we will not sustain the protest. Joint 

Mgmt. & Tech. Servs., B-294229, B-294229.2, Sept. 22, 2004, 2004 CPD ¶ 208 at 7. 

The protest is denied. 

Gary L. Kepplinger 

General Counsel