Holiday Inn-Laurel--Protest and Request for Costs

Holiday Inn-Laurel--Protest and Request for Costs BNUMBER: B-270860.3; B-270860.4 DATE: May 30, 1996 TITLE: Holiday Inn-Laurel--Protest and Request for Costs ********************************************************************** Matter of:Holiday Inn-Laurel--Protest and Request for Costs File: B-270860.3; B-270860.4 Date:May 30, 1996 Nick Merza, Holiday Inn-Laurel, and James H. Roberts III, Esq., Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, for the protester. J. William Bennett, Esq., for Convention Marketing Services, Inc., an intervenor. Capt. Bryant Banes, Thomas J. Duffy, Esq., and Col. Nicholas Retson, Department of the Army, for the agency. Denise Benjamin, Esq., and David R. Kohler, Esq., for the Small Business Administration. Tania L. Calhoun, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protester is entitled to the costs of filing and pursuing its protest challenging the Army's evaluation of its technical proposal where the agency failed to promptly or adequately investigate the clearly meritorious protest allegations questioning the propriety of the evaluation, but only took corrective action when the General Accounting Office asked it to review various improprieties readily apparent in the evaluation documents provided with the agency report. 2. Protest that contracting agency improperly failed to award the contract to the protester after the Small Business Administration (SBA) issued the firm a certificate of competency (COC) is sustained where the record shows that shortly after SBA issued its decision to deny the COC it learned that decision might be erroneous; it immediately requested and received additional time to review that decision from the contracting agency; and the contracting agency failed to take any contract action until after it received SBA's final decision to issue the COC. DECISION Holiday Inn-Laurel requests that we declare it entitled to reimbursement of the reasonable costs of filing and pursuing its protest of the evaluation of its proposal under request for proposals (RFP) No. DAHC36-95-R-0012, issued by the Department of the Army for the provision of meals, lodging, and transportation to support the Baltimore Military Entrance and Processing Station in Baltimore, Maryland. Holiday Inn-Laurel also protests the Army's refusal to award it the contract in light of the fact that the Small Business Administration (SBA) issued the firm a certificate of competency (COC). We conclude that Holiday Inn-Laurel is entitled to the costs of filing and pursuing its prior protest, and we sustain its current protest. BACKGROUND On May 26, 1995, the Army issued this solicitation to award a fixed-price, indefinite quantity contract to the offeror submitting the lowest-priced, technically acceptable offer. The RFP established a performance period of 1 base year, with up to 4 option years. Proposals would be evaluated under six equally important factors, each of which contained various subfactors. After evaluating the four proposals it received, the Army excluded the proposal of Holiday Inn-Laurel, the incumbent contractor, from the competitive range. Holiday Inn-Laurel protested the Army's action in our Office. The Army's report rebutted the protest and provided evaluation documents to support its position. In its comments, Holiday Inn-Laurel raised several new allegations derived from these documents. Among other things, the firm alleged that the Army had improperly evaluated its proposal under the site visit factor; improperly determined that Holiday Inn-Laurel had little past experience; improperly required it to submit past performance evaluations when the Army possessed such evaluations; and improperly evaluated its orientation plan. In response to our request to review the allegations concerning the site visit factor and the firm's past performance, the Army took corrective action by reopening discussions and including the protester's proposal in the competitive range. We dismissed the protest as academic on October 11.[1] The Army conducted discussions, evaluated the revised proposals it received, and determined that Holiday Inn-Laurel's proposal, at a price of $2,741,250, would not be considered for award because its technical proposal was rated marginal and its past performance was poor. The contract was awarded to CMS @ Holiday Inn Express at a price of $3,455,250. On January 4, 1996, Holiday Inn-Laurel protested the Army's action to our Office. Among other things, the firm asserted that the Army had improperly evaluated its technical proposal as marginal, and, more specifically, that the Army had improperly evaluated its technical proposal with respect to past performance.