Comptroller General

United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

of the United States

 

Decision 

Matter of: Piedmont Hoist & Crane 

File: B-400563 

Date: October 8, 2008 

Roger H. Payne for the protester. 

David L. Bell, Esq., Naval Facilities Engineering Command, 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 

Protest that agency improperly refused to consider the protester’s late quotation is 

denied where the agency already had made award prior to receipt of the protester’s 

quotation, and the delay in receipt of the quotation (which was sent electronically) 

was due to the protester’s decision to modify the email address specified in the 

solicitation for submission of quotations. 

DECISION 

Piedmont Hoist & Crane (PHC) protests the rejection of its quotation as late by the 

Department of the Navy, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, under request for 

quotations (RFQ) No. N40085-08-Q-1799 for design and installation of a two-ton 

bridge crane at Cherry Point, North Carolina. 

We deny the protest. 

On August 5, 2008, the Navy posted the RFQ on the FedBizOpps website. The RFQ 

specified a closing date and time of 2 p.m., August 21. The RFQ contained 

instructions for submission of quotations, including the notice that “[e]lectronic bids 

may be submitted to the following email address: roicc_chpt_ktr_bids@navy.mil by 

the time stated on the [standard form] 18.” RFQ at 7. The electronic version of the 

RFQ included a blue, underlined hyperlink for the email address. With the cursor 

placed over the hyperlink for the email address, it appears as 

roicc_chpt_ktr_bids@navy.mil, clearly showing the underscoring of the otherwise 

blank spaces between characters. The agency received one quotation, from MidAtlantic Crane, which received the award on September 3. 
On September 5, PHC contacted the agency to ask about this procurement and was 

told that the agency had not received a quotation from PHC and that award had been 

made to another vendor. PHC maintained that it had sent its quotation by email on 

August 21, at 11:52 a.m., to the following address: roiccchptktrbids@navy.mil, 

eliminating the spaces created by the underscoring in the email address as set out in 

the RFQ. That same day, PHC submitted its quotation directly to the contracting 

officer, as well as information to show the August 21 submission of its quotation. 

Upon review of the information provided by PHC, the contracting officer determined 

that PHC’s quotation had not been received because it was sent to the wrong email 

address. Because the agency first received PHC’s quotation on September 5, after 

award already had been made, the agency did not consider PHC’s quotation further. 

The protester does not dispute that its quotation was received late and after award. 

Rather, the protester argues that the circumstances surrounding the late receipt of 

its quotation compel the agency to consider it. In this regard, the protester argues 

that the error in the email address it used was the result of the unclear manner in 

which the address was set out in the RFQ. Moreover, the protester asserts that the 

email address it used must exist because the protester received a notice of receipt of 

its email, similar to notices of receipt that it has received in response to other email 

submissions that were known to have been properly received. 

We have long held that the requirement to obtain competition to the maximum 

extent practicable means that language requesting quotations by a certain date 

cannot be construed as establishing a firm closing date for the receipt of quotations

absent a provision--which was not present here--expressly providing that quotations

must be received by that date to be considered. Instruments & Controls Serv. Co., 

B-222122, June 30, 1986, 86-2 CPD ¶ 16 at 3. Instead, agencies should consider any 

quotations received prior to source selection if no substantial activity has transpired 

in evaluating quotations and other vendors would not be prejudiced. Id. See also

KPMG Consulting LLP, B-290716, B-290716.2, Sept. 23, 2002, 2002 CPD ¶ 196 at 11. 

Here, where the agency had already made an award prior to its receipt of the 

protester’s quotation, we see no reason to object to the agency’s refusal to consider 

that quotation. John Blood, B-274624, Dec. 19, 1996, 96-2 CPD ¶ 233 at 2. 

The protester’s argument that the email address used by the agency for receipt of 

quotations was “complicated and error-prone,” Comments at 2, and that if the 

address had been clear the protester would not have made the entry error, does not 

compel a different result. As noted above, the email address, with the underscoring, 

was clearly visible in the electronic version of the RFQ once the cursor was placed 

over the address. To the extent the underscoring was not apparent to PHC, PHC 

nevertheless failed to act reasonably in the electronic submission of its quotation, 

which directly resulted in the agency not timely receiving its quotation. Without first 

raising the issue with the agency, PHC simply assumed that what it perceived as 

blank spaces between the characters in the agency’s email address were unintended 

and immaterial--as noted above, the email address used by PHC for the submission 

of its quotation simply eliminated the underscored spaces. It was unreasonable for 

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PHC to make this assumption and thereby modify the email address designated in 

the RFQ for the submission of quotations. Given PHC’s own actions, we have no 

basis to conclude that the agency acted unreasonably by rejecting PHC’s late 

quotation. 

 

The protest is denied. 

Gary L. Kepplinger 

General Counsel 

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