CDA Investment Technologies, Inc.

CDA Investment Technologies, Inc. BNUMBER: B-272093; B-272093.2 DATE: September 12, 1996 TITLE: CDA Investment Technologies, Inc. ********************************************************************** DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE A protected decision was issued on the date below and was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This version has been redacted or approved by the parties involved for public release. Matter of:CDA Investment Technologies, Inc. File: B-272093; B-272093.2 Date:September 12, 1996 Kenneth B. Weckstein, Esq., and Raymond Fioravanti, Esq., Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., for the protester. Kenneth S. Kramer, Esq., and Catherine E. Pollack, Esq., Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, for Disclosure, Inc., an intervenor. George Conril Brown, Esq., Valerie G. Preiss, Esq., and Angela E. Clark, Esq., Securities and Exchange Commission, for the agency. Aldo A. Benejam, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protester was not prejudiced by any errors that may have occurred in the evaluation of awardee's proposed use of a subcontractor for manual data processing where the record shows that, given that the task at issue comprises a relatively minor portion (less than 2 percent) of the overall effort and will become obsolete early in the life of the contract, there is no reason to conclude that the proposal ratings would have materially changed. 2. Protester's contention that agency improperly evaluated its past performance is denied where the record shows that the agency evaluated proposals in accordance with the criteria announced in the solicitation, and the record reasonably supports the technical evaluation panel's decision to downgrade the protester's proposal in this area. 3. Contention that agency improperly conducted discussions only with awardee is denied where the record shows that, although at time of award agency sought to confirm that awardee intended to perform consistent with its proposal submitted approximately 1-1/2 years earlier, the agency reasonably concluded that the awardee did not make any material changes to its proposal. DECISION CDA Investment Technologies, Inc. protests the award of a contract to Disclosure, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. SECHQ1-94-R-0013, issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for processing various forms required to be filed with the SEC. The protester contends that the SEC improperly evaluated Disclosure's proposal; that the SEC's evaluation of CDA's past performance was unreasonable; and that the agency conducted improper discussions. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP, issued October 31, 1994, contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract for the required services for a base period with up to four 1-year option periods. Section C of the RFP required the contractor to perform several tasks, including keying in and processing data filed with the SEC on Forms 13F, 3, 4, 5, and 144.[1] The successful offeror is also required to provide computer readable tapes and printouts, including official summaries of the information filed on those forms, to the SEC and to maintain an "on-line" database for use by the SEC. Offerors were required to submit separate technical and business (i.e., price) proposals. Section M of the RFP stated that technical proposals would be evaluated on the basis of the following factors (the subfactors within each factor are shown in parentheses and were of equal importance): (1) technical qualifications (demonstrated ability including past performance on similar contracts; reliability and maintainability of the computer system; computer flexibility to respond to requests for special projects; understanding of contract requirements); (2) experience and references of key individuals (demonstrated ability of key personnel); (3) past performance (quality of the offeror's past work for government and nongovernment customers); and (4) facilities (adequacy of the physical plant and equipment, and flexibility of physical plant and equipment to handle special projects). The technical qualifications factor was more important than the other three, which were of equal importance. As for price, the RFP stated that the agency would award the maximum number of available points to the proposal offering the lowest total price, including options, and proportionately lower scores to higher-priced proposals. Of the total number of points available in the evaluation, technical and price were worth 75 and 25 percent, respectively. Award was to be made to the offeror whose proposal was deemed to be most advantageous to the government. A technical evaluation panel (TEP) rated the six proposals the agency received by the time set on January 12, 1995, for receipt of initial proposals.