Comptroller General

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

of the United States

DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

The decision issued on the date below was subject to a 

GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been 

approved for public release. 

Decision 

Matter of: ZAFER Construction Company 

File: B-401871.4 

Date: February 1, 2010 

Sam Z. Gdanski, Esq., Gdanski & Gdanski, LLP, for the protester. 

Patrick D. Bowman, Esq., Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers, for the 

agency. 

Linda C. Glass, Esq., and Ralph O. White, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, 

participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

Protest challenging agency’s corrective action, which included terminating the 

awarded contract and allowing all offerors whose proposals were in the competitive 

range to submit a revised proposal, is denied where the agency reasonably 

concluded that offerors should be given the opportunity to submit completely 

revised proposals because the time lapse since proposals were first submitted 

suggests that the original price proposals may no longer accurately reflect the cost of 

the project. 

DECISION 

ZAFER Construction Company, of Ankara, Turkey, protests the terms of corrective 

action announced by the Department of the Army, Army Corps of Engineers, in 

response to earlier protests filed by Contrack International, Inc., of McLean, Virginia. 

Contrack had protested the decision to award a contract to ZAFER, under request 

for proposals (RFP) No. W917PM-09-R-0075 for design and construction of an 

ammunition supply point at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. In this protest, ZAFER 

objects to the Army’s plan to allow competitive range offerors to submit completely 

revised proposals, including price revisions, instead of limiting the revisions solely to 

the project management plan evaluation factor issue. 

We deny the protest. 

BACKGROUND 

The RFP was issued on May 25, 2009, and provided for a “best value” evaluation on 

the basis of the following factors listed in descending order of importance: 
experience, past performance, project management plan and price. Timely 

proposals were received from 15 offerors, including Zafer. After evaluation of 

proposals, award was made to Zafer on August 26, 2009. Contrack requested a 

debriefing, which was held on August 29. 

On September 4, Contrack filed a protest challenging the agency’s evaluation and 

selection decision. The Army submitted an agency report on October 5, and both 

Contrack and Zafer filed comments on the agency report on October 19. Among 

other issues, Contrack alleged that the agency’s evaluation of its proposal under the 

project management evaluation factor was unreasonable and inconsistent with the 

RFP criteria because the agency unfairly assessed weaknesses in Contrack’s plan 

using unstated evaluation criteria, and because the agency applied the evaluation 

factors unequally to the proposals of Contrack and Zafer. 

On October 16, Contrack filed a supplemental protest; in its revised protest, 

Contrack argued that the agency improperly allowed Zafer to submit a 20-page 

project management plan even though the solicitation limited offerors to 6 pages for 

this plan. Contrack also argued that the agency engaged in unequal treatment by 

criticizing its compliant 6-page plan for a lack of detail, while giving credit to Zafer 

for its relatively more detailed plan. 

Before responding to Contrack’s supplemental arguments, the agency announced 

that it was taking corrective action. Specifically, the agency stated that it had 

reviewed the issues raised in the supplemental protest and decided to “terminate the 

awarded contract, issue an amendment, and notify all offerors in the competitive 

range that they may submit a revised proposal.” Corrective Action Letter from Army 

Counsel to GAO, Nov. 3, 2009. Since that corrective action rendered Contrack’s 

protests against the initial award academic, we dismissed Contrack’s protests. 

Contrack Int’l, Inc., B-401871; B-401871.2, Nov. 4, 2009. 

The protester maintains that through subsequent discussions with counsel for the 

agency, it was advised that the corrective action would be limited to permitting 

offerors to revise the project management plan submissions within the stated page 

limitation. However, on November 22, competitive range offerors were sent a letter 

requesting revised proposals. This letter also included a brief evaluation of the 

strengths and weaknesses of the offerors’ initial proposals with instructions to 

consider this feedback in the revised proposal submissions. 

This protest followed. 

DISCUSSION 

Zafer argues that the Army’s corrective action to permit new and complete 

proposals, including price revisions, was overbroad and contradicted the explicit 

representations from the agency counsel that the corrective action would be limited 

Page 2 B-401871.4 
Page 3 B-401871.4 

to the project management plan page limitation issue. Zafer contends that it was 

prejudiced because its low price has been exposed to competitors who may now 

submit revised pricing as well as revised technical submissions resulting in an 

impermissible auction. 

In negotiated procurements, agencies have broad discretion to take corrective action 

where they determine that such action is necessary to ensure fair and impartial 

competition. MayaTech Corp., B-400491.4, B-400491.5, Feb. 25, 2009, 2009 CPD ¶ 55 

at 3. We will not object to the specific corrective action, so long as it is appropriate 

to remedy the concern that caused the agency to take corrective action. Networks 

Elec. Corp., B-290666.3, Sept. 30, 2002, 2002 CPD ¶ 173 at 3. Where the corrective 

action taken by an agency is otherwise unobjectionable, a request for revised price 

proposals is not improper merely because the awardee’s price has been exposed. 

Strand Hunt Constr., Inc., B-292415, Sept. 9, 2003, 2003 CPD ¶ 167 at 6. 

The Army advises that due to the time lapse between proposal submission and the 

corrective action, the agency was concerned that the original price proposals 

submitted by the offerors would no longer accurately reflect the offerors’ costs for 

the project. The Army further advises that the need to take corrective action also 

provided an opportunity to allow offerors to improve the quality of their technical 

submissions by revising their proposals to account for any changed circumstances 

between the original proposal submission and the time of corrective action. 

In our view, this is a matter where the agency has considerable discretion and we 

will not substitute our views for the Army’s on how the agency should proceed, 

absent a showing that this discretion is being abused. We see no such showing here. 

The protest is denied. 

Lynn H. Gibson 

Acting General Counsel