Source: https://www.gao.gov/products/B-413860.4,B-413860.5,B-413860.6,B-413860.7,B-413860.8
Timestamp: 2018-02-25 04:14:54
Document Index: 483273955

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 9', '§ 9', 'art 9', '§ 9', 'art 9', 'art 9']

U.S. GAO - CACI, Inc.-Federal; General Dynamics One Source, LLC
B-413860.4,B-413860.5,B-413860.6,B-413860.7,B-413860.8: Jan 5, 2018
CACI, Inc.-Federal, of Tampa, Florida, and General Dynamics One Source, LLC (GDOS), of Fairfax, Virginia, protest the issuance of a task order to Jacobs Technology Inc., of Tullahoma, Tennessee, under request for proposals (RFP) No. H92222-16-R-0016, which was issued by the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), for special operations forces information technology enterprise contract (SITEC) requirements. The protesters argue that Jacobs had disqualifying organizational conflicts of interest (OCIs) arising from its performance of other contracts for the agency. CACI also argues that the agency failed to adequately investigate whether information included in an attachment to the solicitation resulted in a violation of the Procurement Integrity Act, failed to adequately address the alleged bias of an agency evaluator, and unreasonably assigned a weakness to its proposal concerning its proposed key personnel. GDOS also argues that the agency's evaluation relied on unstated evaluation criteria, unreasonably evaluated the realism of the awardee's proposed costs, and unreasonably evaluated the offerors' past performance.
Based on our review of the record, we conclude that USSOCOM waived application of FAR subpart 9.5 with regard to all of the conflicts identified by the protesters, as authorized by FAR § 9.503. Specifically, the waiver described the OCIs being waived and the waiver was approved by the HCA. See Science Applications Int’l Corp.--Costs, B‑410760.5, Nov. 24, 2015, 2015 CPD ¶ 370 at 5. We address the protester’s challenges to the waiver, below.
The protesters argue, in effect, that because the OCI waivers state that the agency found no disqualifying OCIs, the waivers can only be reasonable if the agency’s review of the merits of the underlying OCI concerns was also reasonable. The record shows, however, that USSOCOM did not waive the application of FAR subpart 9.5 based solely on its conclusion that Jacobs had no disqualifying OCI. Instead, as set forth above, the waivers--particularly the supplemental waiver--state that, regardless of the agency’s assessment of the merits of the OCI allegations, it was in the best interests of the government to waive the application of the FAR OCI provisions. Because the agency’s waiver of the OCIs does not depend on the conclusions set forth in the agency’s OCI investigation, we find no basis to sustain the protesters’ challenges to the reasonableness of the OCI waiver.[9]
As discussed above, however, FAR § 9.503 provides agencies the authority to waive “any general rule or procedure” of FAR subpart 9.5. This provision does not set forth a time at which the waiver must take place, nor does the provision prohibit waiver after a particular point in time. Rather, the provision broadly states the agency may waive any rule or procedure of FAR subpart 9.5--which necessarily encompasses any requirement within the FAR regarding the time for the identification, neutralization, and mitigation of significant OCIs.[10] For these reasons, we find no basis to conclude that the timing of USSOCOM’s issuance of the initial or supplemental waivers provides a basis to sustain the protest.
During USSOCOMS’s corrective action in response to the initial protests, the agency provided offerors a revised RFP pricing template in the form of a Microsoft Excel workbook. AR, Tab 7, RFP attach. C, EOM Pricing Template, May 1, 2017. The agency explains that the workbook contained a hidden worksheet that contained the independent government cost estimate (IGCE). AR, Tab 38, PIA Investigation Report, at 1. Within that hidden worksheet were password-protected data that supported the IGCE, which included the following information used by the agency to calculate estimated salary ranges for the labor categories: incumbent salary averages, labor rate survey data from online, and General Schedule equivalent rates. AR (B-413860.4, B‑413860.6), Tab 9, RFP attach. C, EOM Pricing Template--Unhidden/Unlocked Data, May 1, 2017.
[4] For the technical and management factor, the agency assigned one of the following ratings: blue--exceptional approach with low performance risk; purple--thorough approach with low or moderate performance risk; green--adequate approach with no worse than moderate performance risk; yellow--not an adequate approach with high performance risk; red--unawardable, with unacceptable performance risk. AR, Tab 25, Source Selection Evaluation Board (SSEB) Report, at 6. For the past performance factor, the agency assigned one of the following ratings: substantial confidence, satisfactory confidence, limited confidence, no confidence, or unknown (neutral) confidence. Id. at 9.
[7] As discussed below, we find no basis to sustain CACI’s arguments that the agency violated the Procurement Integrity Act or that the agency’s corrective action failed to address bias concerns regarding an agency evaluator. Based on our conclusions regarding these two arguments, we also conclude that CACI is not an interested party to argue that Jacobs had disqualifying OCIs or to challenge the evaluation of its proposal under the technical and management evaluation factor because those arguments, even if meritorious, would not change CACI’s competitive standing as compared to GDOS--which would remain in line for award ahead of CACI. Nonetheless, our discussion of the OCI issues refers collectively to both protesters’ arguments concerning OCIs because they are largely identical.