Court Opinion

ID: 9393469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-10 15:01:06.343762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:53.494129
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1488    Document: 81     Page: 1   Filed: 05/10/2023

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL,
                   Plaintiff-Appellant

                             v.

 UNITED STATES, GENERAL DYNAMICS MISSION
 SYSTEMS, INC., SIERRA NEVADA CORPORATION,
                Defendants-Appellees
             ______________________

                        2022-1488
                  ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
 in No. 1:21-cv-01823-ZNS, Judge Zachary N. Somers.
                  ______________________

                  Decided: May 10, 2023
                  ______________________

     SHANNEN WAYNE COFFIN, Steptoe & Johnson LLP,
 Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also rep-
 resented by MARK CHRISTOPHER SAVIGNAC; GARY
 CAMPBELL, MILES MCCANN, Perkins Coie LLP, Washing-
 ton, DC.

     DANIEL FALKNOR, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
 Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
 ton, DC, argued for defendant-appellee United States. Also
 represented by REGINALD THOMAS BLADES, JR., BRIAN M.
 BOYNTON, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY; MICHAEL RAY TREGLE,
 JR., Contract Litigation and Intellectual Property, United
Case: 22-1488    Document: 81      Page: 2    Filed: 05/10/2023

 2                                    CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US

 States Army Legal Service Agency, Fort Belvoir, VA.

     MATTHEW S. HELLMAN, Jenner & Block LLP, Washing-
 ton, DC, argued for defendant-appellee General Dynamics
 Mission Systems, Inc. Also represented by NOAH B.
 BLEICHER, NATHANIEL EDWARD CASTELLANO, CARLA
 JOANNE WEISS.

     SHAUN C. KENNEDY, Holland & Hart LLP, Denver, CO,
 for defendant-appellee Sierra Nevada Corporation. Also
 represented by CHRISTOPHER M. JACKSON, RYAN
 LUNDQUIST, THOMAS ANDREW MORALES.
                 ______________________

      Before DYK, REYNA, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
 DYK, Circuit Judge.
     Appellant CACI, Inc. (“CACI”) appeals the Court of
 Federal Claims (“Claims Court”) dismissal of its bid pro-
 test. The Claims Court held that CACI lacked standing but
 nonetheless alternatively concluded that CACI’s bid suf-
 fered a fatal technical deficiency. We hold that the Claims
 Court erred in treating the statutory standing issue as ju-
 risdictional. We affirm on the merits.
                        BACKGROUND
      I.     CACI’s Proposal and the Army’s Evaluation
     The Army issued a solicitation for a Next Generation
 Load Device Medium (“NGLD-M” or “device”) to encrypt
 and decrypt sensitive information on the battlefield. In its
 solicitation, the Army stated that “[i]n order to be eligible
 for [the] award Offerors must . . . [r]ecieve a minimum of
 acceptable rating in each Technical Subfactor.” J.A. 1588.
 The technical subfactors were “Hardware and Application
 Programming Interface (API) Integration/Description Ap-
 proach, User Application Software (UAS) Approach/Key
 Management         Interface    (KMI)       Implementation,
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 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US                                3

 Management, and Production.” J.A. 1588. The Army eval-
 uated each technical subfactor for strengths, weaknesses,
 significant weaknesses, and deficiencies. A deficiency “is a
 material failure of a proposal to meet a Government re-
 quirement or a combination of significant weaknesses in a
 proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract
 performance to an unacceptable level.” J.A. 1594. One or
 more deficiencies would lead to an unacceptable rating,
 meaning that the “[p]roposal is unawardable.” J.A. 1594.
      Five offerors submitted proposals. CACI submitted an
 initial proposal that was given a Technical/Risk Rating of
 unacceptable because it failed to provide for two-factor au-
 thentication for all modes of operation as required by the
 solicitation. Despite this deficiency, CACI’s proposal was
 included in the competitive range, and CACI was allowed
 to submit a final proposal because “only minor revisions to
 [CACI’s] proposal will be required to rectify this issue and
 a complete rewrite will not be necessary.” J.A. 5398.
     Appellees Sierra Nevada Corporation (“SNC”) and
 General Dynamics Mission Systems (“GDMS”) were also
 within the competitive range. CACI, SNC, and GDMS sub-
 mitted final proposals. CACI for the first time included
 two-factor authentication in its bid for all modes of opera-
 tion. CACI proposed using a username and password for
 the first method of authentication and a dongle that could
 be inserted into the device’s USB port for the second
 method of authentication.
     The Army assigned three deficiencies to CACI’s pro-
 posal related to its two-factor authentication proposal.
 First, the Army was unable to confirm that the device with
 the dongle inserted would meet the size requirement be-
 cause CACI did not provide the size measurement of the
 dongle used for two-factor authentication. The Army also
 assigned two other deficiencies because it determined that
 CACI’s proposal required that the two-factor authentica-
 tion dongle remain inserted into the device’s only USB
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 4                                     CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US

 port, meaning the USB port could not be used to distribute
 and receive data as required by the solicitation. The Army
 assigned one deficiency for failure to meet data distribution
 requirements and another for failing to meet the data re-
 ceiving requirements. Because of these three deficiencies,
 CACI was ineligible for the award. The Army awarded the
 contract to SNC and GDMS.
             II.    Proceedings at the Claims Court
     CACI filed a bid protest at the Claims Court challeng-
 ing the technical deficiencies assigned to its proposal. SNC
 and GDMS intervened as defendants. SNC and the gov-
 ernment moved to dismiss CACI’s complaint for lack of
 standing under a new theory not raised before or addressed
 by the contracting officer, namely that CACI had an organ-
 izational conflict of interest (“OCI”) that could not be
 waived or mitigated, which made CACI ineligible for the
 award even if it were to prevail on its claim regarding the
 technical deficiencies. Because of the OCI, SNC and the
 government argued that CACI was not an interested party
 and lacked standing, which they characterized as a juris-
 dictional issue.
      OCIs are governed by the Federal Acquisitions Regula-
 tions (“FAR”), found at 48 C.F.R. Chapter 1. The FAR pre-
 scribes “limitations on contracting as the means of
 avoiding, neutralizing, or mitigating [OCIs]” with the goals
 of “[p]reventing the existence of conflicting roles that might
 bias a contractor’s judgment” and “[p]reventing unfair com-
 petitive advantage.” FAR § 9.505. Under the FAR, con-
 tracting officers are to “[i]dentify and evaluate potential
 [OCIs] as early in the acquisition process as possible.” FAR
 § 9.504(a)(1). An OCI can result from work performed un-
 der a prior contract. The FAR provides, in relevant part,
 that “[a] contractor that provides systems engineering and
 technical direction for a system [under a prior contract] . . .
 shall not . . . [b]e awarded a contract to supply the system
 or any of its major components.” FAR § 9.505-1. In
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 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US                                 5

 general, an OCI can be waived by an agency head or de-
 signee, FAR § 9.503, an OCI can be mitigated, see FAR
 § 9.505, and contractual restrictions may sunset under the
 terms of the prior contract, FAR § 9.507-2. 1
     Here, as part of its proposal, CACI submitted an Or-
 ganizational and Consultant Conflict of Interest state-
 ment. CACI’s statement acknowledged that a former CACI
 employee under a prior contract worked with the Army to
 prepare one of the documents included in the solicitation
 but contended that the employee “provided only logistical
 and administrative support” and “did not participate in the
 substantive aspects of the [document] approval process.”
 J.A. 2318. Thus, CACI concluded it did not have an OCI
 with respect to the current contract. J.A. 2318. Because
 the employee did not provide “engineering and technical di-
 rection” there was no conflict. The contracting officer at
 the time of the proposal made no determination or sugges-
 tion that there was an OCI.
     For the first time at the Claims Court, SNC and the
 government argued that the work of CACI’s former em-
 ployee constituted an OCI because the work was “systems
 engineering and technical assistance” (“SETA”) under FAR
 § 9.505-1. Because CACI had an OCI, it did not have a sub-
 stantial chance of securing the award; it was not an inter-
 ested party and thus lacked standing. In support of its
 motion, the government submitted a declaration from the
 contracting officer for the solicitation. The contracting of-
 ficer stated that, “[a]t the request of counsel for the

     1   CACI asks us to interpret FAR § 9.507-2 and hold
 that once a sunset provision contained in a prior contract
 in accordance with that regulation becomes operable then
 a bidder no longer has a disqualifying OCI stemming from
 that contract, notwithstanding the arguable applicability
 of FAR § 9.505-1. Consistent with the analysis below, we
 decline to decide this issue.
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 6                                    CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US

 Government,” she reviewed CACI’s OCI statement and
 found that “CACI would not have been eligible for [an]
 award due to an unmitigable OCI.” J.A. 59. The contract-
 ing officer declined to request a waiver from the agency
 head at the time she prepared her declaration because she
 “ha[d] no information before [her] that would lead [her] to
 believe that it was in the Government’s best interest to
 waive any provision of FAR Sub Part 9.5 in this acquisi-
 tion.” J.A. 60–61. The contracting officer also found that
 CACI had an OCI that could not be mitigated. The con-
 tracting officer’s declaration did not address whether the
 restriction resulting from the earlier contract had expired,
 i.e., sunsetted.
      In its answering brief, CACI argued that the OCI
 should not be determined in a de novo review by the Claims
 Court because the contracting officer’s declaration failed to
 follow the procedure set forth by the FAR, and, in any
 event, that the work done by its prior employee was not
 SETA work, and that any potential OCI had been sunset-
 ted.
     The Claims Court conducted its own analysis of the rec-
 ord evidence, finding that CACI’s OCI statement and the
 technical documents in the solicitation provided prima fa-
 cie evidence that CACI had performed SETA work. The
 Claims Court did not rely upon the contracting officer’s dec-
 laration. Because “[t]he FAR prohibits a [systems engi-
 neering and technical direction] contractor, as either a
 prime contractor or a subcontractor, from supplying any of
 the system’s major components,” J.A. 9 (alterations in orig-
 inal) (citations omitted), and because CACI’s prior work
 was related to the same system, CACI had an OCI. Since
 CACI did not provide any evidence to rebut this prima facie
 showing, the Claims Court concluded that CACI did not
 have standing because the OCI would have prevented
 CACI from being eligible for the award. In other words,
 CACI did not show that it had a “substantial chance it
 would have received the contract award but for the alleged
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 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US                                    7

 error [regarding the technical deficiencies] in the procure-
 ment process.” J.A. 9 (internal quotation marks and em-
 phasis omitted) (quoting Info. Tech. & Applications Corp.
 v. United States, 316 F.3d 1312, 1319 (Fed. Cir. 2003)).
     The Claims Court apparently held that the OCI here
 was not eliminated by waiver, mitigation, or sunset provi-
 sions, because the FAR provides that
     [a] contractor that provides systems engineering
     and technical direction for a system but does not
     have overall contractual responsibility for its devel-
     opment, its integration, assembly, and checkout, or
     its production shall not – (1) be awarded a contract
     to supply the system or any of its major components
     or (2) be a subcontractor or consultant to a supplier
     of the system or any of its major components.
 J.A. 9 (emphasis and alteration in original) (quoting FAR
 § 9.505-1(a)).
      Alternatively, the Claims Court found that, even if
 CACI had standing, defendants would nevertheless be en-
 titled to judgment on the administrative record. In this re-
 spect, the Claims Court considered each of the challenged
 technical deficiencies and found that the Army acted rea-
 sonably in its assessment of CACI’s proposal.
      The Claims Count dismissed CACI’s complaint for lack
 of jurisdiction (lack of standing). CACI appealed. We have
 jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
                              DISCUSSION
             I.     The Claims Court’s OCI Decision
    Under the Tucker Act, the Claims Court has jurisdic-
 tion over actions “by an interested party objecting to . . . the
 award of a contract [by a federal agency.]” 28 U.S.C.
 § 1491(b)(1). We have interpreted the statutory language
 “interested party” to be an “actual or prospective bidder[]
 or offeror[] whose direct economic interest would be
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 8                                    CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US

 affected by the award of the contract or by failure to award
 the contract.” Rex Serv. Corp. v. United States, 448 F.3d
 1305, 1307 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (emphasis and citation omit-
 ted). “To prove a direct economic interest, a party must
 show that it had a ‘substantial chance’ of winning the con-
 tract.” Digitalis Educ. Sols., Inc. v. United States, 664 F.3d
 1380, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (quoting Rex Serv., 448 F.3d at
 1308).
     The standing issue here presents a question of statutory
 standing rather than Article III standing, Acetris Health,
 LLC v. United States, 949 F.3d 719, 727 (Fed. Cir. 2020)
 (characterizing the “interested party” inquiry as “statutory
 standing”), there being no contention that CACI lacks Ar-
 ticle III standing. Although the Supreme Court had “on
 occasion . . . treated [statutory standing] as effectively ju-
 risdictional,” Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Compo-
 nents, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 128 n.4 (2014) (citing Steel Co. v.
 Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 97 & n.2 (1998)), in
 Lexmark, the Supreme Court held that statutory standing,
 occasionally referred to as the zone-of-interests require-
 ment, is not jurisdictional. Id. Rather, it is “an issue that
 requires us to determine, using traditional tools of statu-
 tory interpretation, whether a legislatively conferred cause
 of action encompasses a particular plaintiff’s claim.” Id. at
 127.
      Thus, as we have confirmed, “the Supreme Court has
 . . . clarified that so-called ‘statutory standing’ defects do
 not implicate a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction.” Lone
 Star Silicon Innovations LLC v. Nanya Tech. Corp., 925
 F.3d 1225, 1235 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (citing Lexmark, 572 U.S.
 at 128 n.4); see also Meenaxi Enter., Inc. v. Coca-Cola Co.,
 38 F.4th 1067, 1072 n.2 (Fed. Cir. 2022). This is true even
 when the cause of action relies on a waiver of sovereign im-
 munity. See Wilkins v. United States, 143 S. Ct. 870, 879
 (2023); Walby v. United States, 957 F.3d 1295, 1300 (Fed.
 Cir. 2020) (citing United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 575 U.S.
 402, 410 (2015)). Our prior caselaw treating the interested
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 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US                                  9

 party issue as a jurisdictional issue, see, e.g., Myers Inves-
 tigative & Sec. Servs., Inc. v. United States, 275 F.3d 1366,
 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (citing Steel Co, 523 U.S. at 102–04),
 is no longer good law in this respect. The Claims Court
 here erred in treating the issue of statutory standing as ju-
 risdictional.
      We now turn to the question of whether the Claims
 Court properly considered statutory standing de novo
 where the issue had not been addressed initially by the con-
 tracting officer. Federal acquisitions, and the role of the
 contracting officer, are governed by the FAR. This regula-
 tion is promulgated under chapter 13 of title 41 of the U.S.
 Code. The statute establishes “a Federal Acquisition Reg-
 ulatory Council,” 41 U.S.C. § 1302, with members author-
 ized to issue and maintain the FAR. Id. § 1303(a)(1).
 Under the FAR, the contracting officer plays important
 roles. The contracting officer determines whether and to
 whom a contract should be awarded by applying the terms
 of the solicitation, the FAR, and other governing authority.
 See FAR § 15.303. In the case of a dispute between the
 government and the contracting party after a contract has
 been awarded, the contractor can submit a dispute directly
 to the contracting officer under the Contract Disputes Act.
 41 U.S.C. § 7103(a)(1). The contracting officer’s decision is
 then subject to review by an agency board or the Claims
 Court. Id. § 7104.
     In contrast, in most bid protests, the contracting officer
 is not charged with initially resolving a bid protest dispute.
 Under the statute, a protestor may file a protest at Govern-
 ment Accountability Office or the Claims Court. 2 See
 41 U.S.C. § 3708(a)(1); 31 U.S.C. § 3552(a); 4 C.F.R.

     2   A protestor may also file a protest directly with the
 contracting officer, as established by Executive Order No.
 12,979, 60 Fed. Reg. 55171 (Oct. 25, 1995). See FAR
 § 33.103.
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 10                                   CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US

 21.1(c); 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(1). When such disputes are
 presented to the Claims Court, the plaintiff must be an “in-
 terested party,” 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(1), that is, a party with
 a substantial chance of securing the award. See Info. Tech.
 & Applications Corp., 316 F.3d at 1319 (statutory stand-
 ing). The Claims Court in some instances must make the
 statutory standing determination, i.e., whether the plain-
 tiff is an interested party. This determination by the
 Claims Court is required when the plaintiff is arguing that
 the contracting officer made an error in evaluating the bid
 of another contractor. Myers, 275 F.3d at 1370; CliniComp
 Int’l, Inc. v. United States, 904 F.3d 1353, 1359 (Fed. Cir.
 2018). This is so even though statutory standing is no
 longer treated as a jurisdictional issue. We see nothing in
 Lexmark that suggests that in such cases the Claims Court
 may not initially determine whether a plaintiff is an “inter-
 ested party,” though such an initial determination is not
 required before addressing the merits, because statutory
 standing is not jurisdictional.
     In such instances where the Claims Court elects to
 make a determination of statutory standing, the Claims
 Court is charged only with making a preliminary determi-
 nation (“substantial chance”) with respect to the plaintiff’s
 chances of securing the contract, rather than a final merits
 determination of contract entitlement. See Digitalis, 664
 F.3d at 1384. Unless some exception to the Chenery doc-
 trine permits final decision by the Claims Court, for exam-
 ple, the issue to be decided is purely legal, a remand to the
 agency is required to make the final determination of con-
 tract entitlement. See Oracle Am., Inc. v. United States,
 975 F.3d 1279, 1291 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (describing Chenery
 remand exceptions).
    However, the present case is different from Myers and
 CliniComp in that CACI is not challenging an award to a
 third party based on some defect in the solicitation process,
 but is rather challenging the contracting officer’s determi-
 nation that CACI’s own bid had disqualifying deficiencies.
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 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US                                11

 In this context, the statutory standing issue and the merits
 issue are overlapping. Every merits issue to a bidder’s
 qualifications is also a statutory standing issue. As the
 government admitted at oral argument, the technical defi-
 ciencies issues here could themselves be viewed as statu-
 tory standing issues. See Oral Arg. at 19:22–20:51; see also
 COMINT Sys. Corp. v. United States, 700 F.3d 1377, 1383
 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“[T]he propriety of the marginal Qual-
 ity/Capability rating assigned to Comint by the agency is
 determinative of both Comint’s standing and the merits.”).
      In such a situation, allowing the Claims Court to deter-
 mine statutory standing de novo would be to allow the
 Claims Court to determine the merits de novo, when the
 statute and regulations clearly provide that CACI’s OCI
 compliance is to be determined initially by the contracting
 officer and reviewed by the Claims Court based on the
 agency record and an arbitrary and capricious standard.
     Congress has primarily placed the matter of OCI deter-
 minations in the hands of the contracting officer. “[T]he
 FAR recognizes that the identification of OCIs and the
 evaluation of mitigation proposals are fact-specific inquir-
 ies that require the exercise of considerable discretion.”
 Axiom Res. Mgmt., Inc. v. United States, 564 F.3d 1374,
 1382 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (citing FAR § 9.505). We have em-
 phasized the importance of the arbitrary and capricious
 standard for reviewing a contracting officer’s actions in bid
 award decisions. Id. at 1381–82.
     In Axiom, Axiom, an unsuccessful bidder, challenged
 the award of a contract to another bidder, Lockheed, alleg-
 ing that Lockheed had an OCI. Id. at 1377–78. The con-
 tracting officer had reviewed Lockheed’s alleged OCI and
 concluded that the OCI was appropriately mitigated. Id.
 Axiom filed a complaint at the Claims Court, alleging that
 the government violated the FAR’s OCI provisions and
 seeking to supplement the record with affidavits not before
 the contracting officer. Id. at 1378–79. The Claims Court
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 12                                    CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US

 allowed Axiom to supplement the record and held, based
 on the supplemented record, that there was an OCI in vio-
 lation of FAR § 9.5. In doing so, the court did not apply the
 arbitrary and capricious standard. Id. at 1379. On appeal,
 we held that the Claims Court erred by essentially conduct-
 ing a de novo review of the OCI issue and in allowing Axiom
 to supplement the record before the contracting officer. Id.
 at 1381.
     Here, too, the Claims Court erroneously conducted a de
 novo review of CACI’s purported OCI. Where, as here, is-
 sues of statutory standing and merits overlap and there is
 no Chenery exception, the Claims Court has no authority
 to conduct its own de novo determination of the issue based
 on a record made in the Claims Court. 3
     To be sure, when a losing bidder is challenging the con-
 tracting officer’s determination, the disappointed bidder
 must establish that it was prejudiced by the contracting of-
 ficer’s action. See Oracle Am., Inc., 975 F.3d at 1290–92.
 The issue of prejudice is related to the issue of statutory
 standing. See Data Gen. Corp. v. Johnson, 78 F.3d 1556,
 1562 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (describing various formulations of
 prejudice). Here, the government could assert that any er-
 ror in the technical deficiencies determination would have
 been harmless if CACI had a disqualifying conflict of inter-
 est. But as with statutory standing under Lexmark, the
 issue of prejudice is no longer jurisdictional unless it impli-
 cates Article III considerations, and our cases to the con-
 trary are no longer good law. The issue of prejudice can
 properly be resolved by the Claims Court initially only if
 under Chenery the issue need not be remanded to the
 agency, for example, if the issue is a purely legal question,
 Oracle Am., Inc., 975 F.3d at 1291, which is not the case

      3   This conclusion is not intended to suggest that the
 Claims Court cannot make jurisdictional determinations in
 the first instance.
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 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US                               13

 here. Typically, however, if the issue has not been ad-
 dressed in the first instance by the contracting officer, a
 remand is necessary for the contracting officer to address
 the issue of prejudice.
     In the context of appeals from other agency decisions,
 the Supreme Court has held that, “[g]enerally speaking, a
 [reviewing court] should remand a case to an agency for
 decision of a matter that statutes place primarily in agency
 hands.” INS v. Orlando Ventura, 537 U.S. 12, 16 (2002)
 (per curiam). This is because “[t]he reviewing court is not
 generally empowered to conduct a de novo inquiry into the
 matter being reviewed and to reach its own conclusions
 based on such an inquiry.” Fla. Power & Light Co. v. Lo-
 rion, 470 U.S. 729, 744 (1985). 4 In general, a declaration
 from a contracting officer as to how she would resolve the
 case is no substitute for a remand where the challenging
 party would have a full opportunity to present the case to
 the contracting officer. See FAR § 9.504(e) (“Before deter-
 mining to withhold award based on conflict of interest con-
 siderations, the contracting officer shall notify the
 contractor, provide the reasons therefor, and allow the con-
 tractor a reasonable opportunity to respond.”).
      Given our determination as to the contracting officer’s
 evaluation of the technical deficiencies (discussed below),
 there is no need to consider a remand to the contracting
 officer in this case to consider the OCI allegations. 5

     4   See also, e.g., Turner Const. Co. v. United States,
 645 F.3d 1377, 1386–87 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (finding no error
 in the Claims Court’s deferential consideration of a con-
 tracting officer’s post-award OCI investigation and analy-
 sis).
     5   CACI raises concerns about the effect of the Claims
 Court’s OCI decision on its eligibility and competitiveness
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 14                                      CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US

                II.      CACI’s Technical Deficiencies
     We review the Claims Court’s assessment of agency ac-
 tions without deference, reapplying the same standard of
 review applicable in the Claims Court. Bannum, Inc. v.
 United States, 404 F.3d 1346, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2005). We
 consider whether the agency’s actions were “arbitrary, ca-
 pricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accord-
 ance with law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A); see Bannum, 404 F.3d
 at 1351.
      We consider only the first technical deficiency because
 it is determinative. There is evidence that the dongle in
 CACI’s proposal would protrude from the device. The
 Army assigned a technical deficiency to CACI’s proposal for
 failing to include the measurements of the proposed dongle
 used for two-factor authentication, making it “unclear if
 the proposed design meets the [device] length . . . require-
 ment[]” when the dongle is inserted. Appellant’s Br. at 44
 (quoting J.A. 5137).
    CACI argues that the Army’s determination was an
 abuse of discretion for two reasons.
     First, CACI argues that the dongle was not “opera-
 tional hardware” and thus did not need to be included in

 for contracts in the future. Based on these concerns, CACI
 asks that we clearly rule there was no OCI. Oral Arg. at
 0:16-0:36, 2:26-2:50. While we are not unsympathetic to
 CACI’s concerns, we conclude that the issue need not and
 should not be resolved in this appeal, just as the Claims
 Court could not properly resolve it de novo. We note, how-
 ever, that because we vacate the OCI finding (and the con-
 tracting officer’s declaration) without remanding for a final
 determination on the issue, the Claims Court’s OCI find-
 ings have no preclusive effect.
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 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US                                   15

 the device measurements. CACI points to the size require-
 ment, which states:
     The NGLD-M operational hardware used to per-
     form NGLD-M functions shall not exceed the
     length of 7.75”, width of 4.5”, and depth of 2.5”. The
     NGLD-M operational hardware used to perform
     NGLD-M functions shall not exceed 8 pounds. (In-
     cluding batteries as well as system components and
     accessories). The operational hardware may con-
     tain primary device, batteries and accessories re-
     quired to operate the NGLD-M.                  Battery
     installation is included for [size] requirements.
     Standalone cables that provide a means of interfac-
     ing with systems, devices or power sources that are
     outside of the NGLD-M system context are exempt
     from the [size] requirements. Contractors shall not
     use proprietary standalone cables.
 J.A. 1334 (emphasis added). CACI argues that the lan-
 guage “[t]he operational hardware may contain,” id. (em-
 phasis added), suggests that the Army considered some
 accessories not to be “operational hardware.” CACI further
 points to the language, “Standalone cables that provide a
 means of interfacing with systems, devices or power
 sources that are outside of the NGLD-M system context are
 exempt from the [size] requirements,” id., as evidence that
 not all accessories are operational hardware. Accordingly,
 CACI argues that there is a latent ambiguity in the pro-
 posal that should be construed against the government.
     However, there is no ambiguity as to whether CACI’s
 proposed dongle is operational hardware as that term is
 used in the proposal. As set forth in the block quote above,
 the requirement is clear that “operational hardware” is
 “used to perform NGLD-M functions” and “required to op-
 erate the NGLD-M.” J.A. 1334. As the contracting officer
 determined, CACI’s dongle is required to operate the device
 because without it, a user could not initiate a session.
Case: 22-1488    Document: 81     Page: 16    Filed: 05/10/2023

 16                                   CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US

 Thus, the contracting officer was correct to find the dongle
 to be operational hardware.
      Second, CACI argues that the Army treated offerors
 differently with regard to the size requirement because one
 of the other offerors was not assigned a deficiency for fail-
 ing to include its authentication device in its measure-
 ments. Disparate evaluation claims are analyzed under a
 “substantively indistinguishable” standard. Off. Design
 Grp. v. United States, 951 F.3d 1366, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2020).
 Under this standard, the protestor must show that the de-
 ficiencies assigned to its proposal were “substantively in-
 distinguishable” from those contained in other proposals.
 Id. at 1372–73. CACI did not do so here.
     It is true that the other offeror did not provide the
 measurements of its proposed authentication device. How-
 ever, the other offeror proposed a different solution from
 CACI’s to meet the two-factor authentication require-
 ments. This solution involved a small cartridge that is in-
 serted into a housing unit already built into the device.
 Accordingly, it is possible that inserting the cartridge
 would not affect the size of the device. In contrast, CACI
 proposed an external dongle that had to be inserted into a
 USB-C port, a solution that the Army reasonably deter-
 mined could impact the dimensions of the device when the
 dongle was inserted. CACI had the burden of showing that
 the two solutions are “substantively indistinguishable,” a
 burden CACI failed to meet.
     Therefore, the Army reasonably assigned a technical
 deficiency under the size requirement. A single deficiency
 renders the proposal “unawardable.” J.A. 1594. The
 Claims Court did not err in sustaining the contracting of-
 ficer’s finding of a technical deficiency.
                        CONCLUSION
    For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the Claims
 Court’s statutory standing determination was erroneous
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 CACI, INC.-FEDERAL   v. US                              17

 because the Claims Court improperly addressed the non-
 jurisdictional question of statutory standing de novo de-
 spite the absence of any Chenery exception, but we none-
 theless affirm the ultimate determination.
    AFFIRMED-IN-PART AND VACATED-IN-PART
                              COSTS
 No costs.