United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

Comptroller General

of the United States

Decision 

Matter of: Colette, Inc.--Request for Reconsideration

File: B-407561.2

Date: January 3, 2013

Christopher R. Shiplett, Esq., Randolph Law, PLLC, for the protester. 

Michael Kraycinovich, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency.

Louis A. Chiarella, Esq., and David A. Ashen, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, 

GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

GAO generally does not have jurisdiction under 10 U.S.C. § 2304c(e) to review 

protests of orders under issued task or delivery order contracts where the order is 

valued at less than $10 million unless the protester can show that the order 

increases the scope, period, or maximum value of the contract against which the 

order was issued; a protester’s challenge to the agency’s task order evaluation 

procedures does not implicate the scope of the underlying task or delivery order 

contract.

DECISION

Colette, Inc., of Alexandria, Virginia, requests reconsideration of our October 25, 

2012, decision dismissing for lack of jurisdiction its protest regarding the 

Department of the Army’s issuance of a task order to The McConnell Group, Inc., of 

Rockville, Maryland, under task order request for proposals (RFP) No. 03-30, for 

services supporting the Graduate Medical Education simulation scenarios at Navy 

medicine training sites. 

We dismiss the request for reconsideration. 

The RFP was issued on August 31 pursuant to a multiple award, indefinite-delivery, 

indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract known as Omnibus III. Collette and McConnell 

are Omnibus III-contract holders eligible to compete, and both submitted proposals 

by the September 14 closing date. After completing its evaluation of offerors’ 

proposals, the Army issued a task order to McConnell on September 25 in the 

amount of $1,139,775.
B-407561.2

Colette filed a protest with our Office on October 5 challenging the Army’s issuance

of the task order to McConnell based on numerous alleged errors in the evaluation 

and selection process. On October 25, we dismissed the protest for lack of 

jurisdiction. Colette, Inc., B-407561, Oct. 25, 2012. We stated that our Office 

generally does not have jurisdiction to review protests of task orders valued at less 

than $10 million unless the protester can show that the order increases the scope, 

period, or maximum value of the contract against which the order was issued. Id.

at 1, citing 10 U.S.C. § 2304c(e) (2006); e-Management Consultants, Inc.; Centech 

Group, Inc., B-400585.2, B-400585.3, Feb. 3, 2009, 2009 CPD ¶ 39 at 6. We found

that although Colette alleged that the task order issued to McConnell went beyond 

the scope of the underlying ID/IQ contract, Colette’s arguments actually focused on 

the manner in which the Army had conducted the task order competition.1 Id. at 1. 

As there was no dispute that the value of the task order at issue was less than $10 

million, we lacked jurisdiction to review the matter. Id. at 1-2. Colette then filed this 

request for reconsideration.

The protester now repeats arguments it made previously in response to the 

agency’s dismissal request below and expresses disagreement with our decision. 

Under our Bid Protest Regulations, to obtain reconsideration the requesting party 

must set out the factual and legal grounds upon which reversal or modification of 

the decision is deemed warranted, specifying any errors of law made or information 

not previously considered. 4 C.F.R. § 21.14(a) (2012). The repetition of arguments 

made during our consideration of the original protest and disagreement with our 

decision do not meet this standard. Veda, Inc.--Recon., B-278516.3, B-278516.4, 

July 8, 1998, 98-2 CPD ¶ 12 at 4.

Moreover, the protester’s reconsideration request demonstrates a fundamental 

misunderstanding of what is meant by “exceeding the scope” of the underlying ID/IQ 

contract. Colette asserts that its protest is permissible because the underlying 

Omnibus III contracts require the Army to evaluate task order proposals in 

accordance with the requirements and criteria set forth in the task order solicitation. 

The thrust of Colette’s allegation is that a flawed evaluation results in a task order 

that goes beyond the scope of the underlying contract. We disagree. 

In entertaining protests related to the issuance of task orders, we have consistently 

understood “scope” to refer to the scope of work authorized in the underlying 

contract. See, e.g., California Indus. Facilities Res., Inc., d/b/a CAMSS Shelters, 

B-403421 et al., Nov. 5, 2010, 2010 CPD ¶ 269 at 4; DynCorp Int'l LLC, B-402349, 

Mar. 15, 2010, 2010 CPD ¶ 59 at 6; Anteon Corp., B-293523, B-293523.2, Mar. 29, 

2004, 2004 CPD ¶ 51 at 4; see also AT&T Commc'ns, Inc. v. Wiltel, Inc., 1 F.3d 

 

1 For example, Colette challenged the agency’s evaluation of its proposal as 

unreasonable and inconsistent with the stated evaluation criteria. Colette, Inc., 

supra, at 1.
B-407561.2

1201, 1204 (1993). Moreover, like the Court of Federal Claims’ decision in Solute 

Consulting v. United States, 103 Fed. Cl. 783, 791-92 (2012), we find the protester’s 

expansive definition of “scope” to be without support in the statutory text, legislative 

history, or case law, and would render the task order protest bar meaningless. 

Quite simply, Colette’s attempt to recharacterize its task order evaluation challenges 

as “beyond the scope” of the underlying ID/IQ contract in order to avoid the 

jurisdictional bar to their consideration is without merit. 

The request for reconsideration is dismissed.

Susan A. Poling

General Counsel