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: Overseas Lease Group, Inc. 

File: B-402111 

Date: January 19, 2010 

James S. Phillips, Esq., and Brian C. Caney, Esq., Centre Law Group, LLC, for the 

protester. 

Eric J. Marcotte, Esq., and Scott A. Schipma, Esq., for ANHAM FZCO, LLC, an 

intervenor. 

Maj. Carla T. Peters, Department of the Army, for the agency. 

Jacqueline Maeder, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, 

GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

Contract modification requiring lease and maintenance for “unarmored” vehicles 

was within scope of contract calling for lease and maintenance of both “non-tactical” 

and “up-armored” vehicles; while protester argues that “non-tactical” vehicles can be 

armored, solicitation’s differentiating between “non-tactical” and “up-armored” 

vehicles was sufficient to put protester on notice that term “non-tactical” was 

intended to refer to unarmored vehicles. 

DECISION 

Overseas Lease Group, Inc. (OLG), of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, protests the 

Department of the Army’s issuance of modification No. P00003 to contract 

No. W91B4M-09-D-4001 (No. 4001) to ANHAM FZCO, LLC, of Dubai, United Arab 

Emirates. OLG contends that the modification is beyond the scope of the contract 

and thus amounted to an improper sole-source award to ANHAM. 

We deny the protest. 

Request for proposals (RFP) No. W91B4M-09-R-4007 (RFP 4007), issued on 

December 23, 2008, contemplated a single award task-order indefinite-delivery/ 

indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract for a base year, with two 1-year options. RFP 

at 14. The performance work statement (PWS) described the scope of the contract 

as follows: 
This requirement is for non-personal services to provide vehicle leases 

for Government Non-tactical and Up-Armored Vehicles in 

Afghanistan. . . . The contractor will be responsible for scheduled 

routine maintenance and unscheduled maintenance of the vehicles if 

contracted for by the customer. 

RFP at 77. The RFP included contract line items (CLIN) requesting offerors to 

submit, among other things, unit and extended prices for a maximum of 150 leased 

vehicles for the base year and each option year. RFP at 4-9. The CLINs did not 

specify vehicle types; rather, the solicitation included a Vehicle Lease Price List 

(VLPL) at Table 1, which listed five different makes and models of armored vehicles. 

RFP at 11. However, the solicitation also advised offerors that the VLPL would 

change, stating in the PWS that: “The contractor shall only deliver vehicles selected 

from the [VLPL]. The [VLPL] will be incorporated into the contract and may change 

in accordance with the available market. . . .” RFP at 77. On May 28, the agency 

made award to ANHAM. The contract includes the RFP provisions quoted above. 

On July 27, the Army issued no-cost modification P00003 (at issue here) to ANHAM’s 

contract, which, among other things, added Table 1-B, Unarmored Vehicles, listing 

four unarmored vehicles. Agency Report (AR), Tab 13, Modification P00003, 

at 23 24. 

OLG contends that ANHAM’s contract was limited to armored vehicles, and that 

adding unarmored vehicles under the modification exceeded the scope of the 

contract and therefore constituted an improper sole-source award. The Army 

asserts that the RFP in fact included unarmored vehicles, stating that in “military 

parlance, a non-tactical vehicle (NTV) connotes a commercially available vehicle 

that is not armored . . . . Soft-skinned, unarmored and non-tactical vehicles are 

adjectives used interchangeably to denote commercial vehicles without any form of 

armor.” AR at 2 n.1.1

As a general rule, our Office will not consider protests against contract 

modifications, since they involve matters of contract administration and are beyond 

the scope of our bid protest function. 4 C.F.R. § 21.5(a) (2009); DOR Biodefense, 

Inc.; Emergent BioSolutions, B-296358.3, B-296358.4, Jan. 31, 2006, 2006 CPD ¶ 35 

at 6: Engineering & Prof’l Servs., Inc., B-289331, Jan. 28, 2002, 2002 CPD ¶ 24 at 4. An 

exception to this general rule is where, as here, a protester alleges that a 

 

1

 The agency notes that Army regulations describe an NTV as a motor vehicle or 

trailer of commercial design used for providing administrative, direct mission, or 

operational transportation support of military functions, and explains that all 

Department of Defense sedans, station wagons, carryalls, vans and buses are 

considered NTV. Army Regulation 58-1, Management, Acquisition and Use of Motor 

Vehicles, Aug. 10, 2004, at 54. 

Page 2 B-402111 
modification is beyond the scope of the original contract, since, absent a valid 

sole-source justification, the work covered by the modification would be subject to 

the statutory requirement for competition. Engineering & Prof’l Servs., Inc., supra, 

at 4; Atlantic Coast Contracting, Inc., B-288969.2, June 21, 2002, 2002 CPD ¶ 104 at 4. 

In determining whether a modification triggers the competition requirements in the 

Competition In Contracting Act of 1984, 10 U.S.C. § 2304(a)(1)(A), we look to 

whether there is a material difference between the modified contract and the 

contract that was originally awarded. Engineering & Prof’l Servs, Inc., supra, at 4. 

Evidence of a material difference between the modification and the original contract 

is found by examining changes in the type of work, performance period, and costs 

between the contract as awarded and as modified. Atlantic Coast Contracting, Inc., 

supra, at 4. Here, the record is clear that the purpose and nature of the original 

contract were not changed by the modification. 

The determinative consideration here is, simply, whether the requirement as 

described in the RFP (and resulting contract) included unarmored vehicles. While 

the RFP does not refer to “unarmored” vehicles, per se, in describing the 

requirement, we think it nevertheless was sufficiently clear that unarmored vehicles 

were encompassed by the RFP. In this regard, in describing the requirement, as 

noted, the RFP differentiated between “non-tactical vehicles” (NTV) and 

“up-armored” vehicles.” It is undisputed in the record that an NTV may be either 

armored or unarmored. However, since the RFP here specifically called for both 

NTV and “up-armored” vehicles, we think it should have been clear to the protester 

that the term NTV was intended to refer to unarmored NTV. If the protester were 

correct that NTV referred only to NTV with armor, there would have been no logical 

reason for the RFP to refer to NTV at all, since up-armored vehicles reasonably 

would have included armored NTVs. Moreover, the RFP nowhere defined NTV as 

armored vehicles and, while OLG contends that the Army’s definition of NTV is 

“flat-out wrong,” Protester Comments at 2, it has provided no definitive evidence 

refuting the agency’s assertion that the term NTV generally is used to refer to 

unarmored vehicles. 

OLG maintains that the fact that the RFP and contract specified “five specific 

configurations of ‘hard’ (armored) vehicles,” and no unarmored vehicles, shows that 

the contract was not meant to include the ordering or delivery of unarmored 

vehicles. Protest at 3. However, the agency made clear from the outset that the 

VLPL was not all-inclusive, and could be modified in the future. In this regard, as 

noted above, the RFP advised offerors that “The [VLPL] will be incorporated into the 

contract and may change in accordance with the available market. . . .” RFP at 77. 

Consistent with this language, amendment 5 to the RFP, issued January 9, 2009, 

included answers to questions, including the following: 

Q4: I am curious if only one brand of transport would be acceptable?, 

such as the specified Ford Truck and Van units? 

Page 3 B-402111 
Page 4 B-402111 

A4: The list of vehicles in the solicitation is representative of what we 

have been using and will continue to be diversified. 

RFP amend. 5, at 3. In response to another question regarding the vehicles, the 

agency advised that the “list of vehicles will be amended, if required, after award of 

the contract. Please quote on the list as provided.” Id. In view of the cited RFP 

language, as clarified by the amendment, the listing of only armored vehicles in the 

RFP did not preclude the purchase of unarmored vehicles under the contract.2 

The protest is denied. 

Lynn H. Gibson 

Acting General Counsel 

 

2

 The Army explains that the five armored vehicles included on the VLPL in the 

solicitation were provided as a representative example of the types of armored 

vehicles that were currently required, and that unarmored vehicles were not listed 

because they are not in high demand in a war zone. AR at 7.