L. Washington & Associates, Inc.--Reconsideration

B-274749.2 Nov 18, 1996 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Protest against elimination of proposal from the competitive range was properly dismissed as untimely where the protest was filed more than 10 days after the protester was orally notified that its proposal was eliminated. We dismissed the protest as untimely because it was filed more than 1 month after the protester knew that its proposal had been eliminated. 1996) that its proposal was not included in the competitive range and informed LWA of the specific reasons why the proposal was rejected. The contracting officer told LWA (during an August 21 telephone call) that its proposal was still considered unacceptable. Because LWA knew upon receipt of the contracting officer's August 14 letter that its proposal was eliminated from the competitive range as well as the specific reasons for the agency's decision to reject its proposal. View Decision Matter of: L. Washington & Associates, Inc.--Reconsideration File: B-274749.2 Date: November 18, 1996 Protest against elimination of proposal from the competitive range was properly dismissed as untimely where the protest was filed more than 10 days after the protester was orally notified that its proposal was eliminated; a protester cannot wait until it receives written confirmation of oral notification that its proposal has been eliminated to file its protest Attorneys DECISION L. Washington & Associates, Inc. (LWA) requests reconsideration of our October 6, 1996, dismissal of its protest alleging that the Social Security Administration (SSA) improperly eliminated its proposal from the competitive range under request for proposals (RFP) No. 96-2548 for security guard services. We dismissed the protest as untimely because it was filed more than 1 month after the protester knew that its proposal had been eliminated. We affirm the dismissal. In dismissing LWA's protest, we noted that the contracting officer had notified LWA (by letter dated August 14, 1996) that its proposal was not included in the competitive range and informed LWA of the specific reasons why the proposal was rejected. We also noted that, after LWA wrote to the contracting officer to refute the agency's determination that its technically unacceptable proposal should be rejected and furnished additional related information, the contracting officer told LWA (during an August 21 telephone call) that its proposal was still considered unacceptable. Because LWA knew upon receipt of the contracting officer's August 14 letter that its proposal was eliminated from the competitive range as well as the specific reasons for the agency's decision to reject its proposal, and because LWA knew from the contracting officer's August 21 telephone call that the agency still considered its proposal to be technically unacceptable and not in the competitive range, we dismissed LWA's September 24 protest to our Office as untimely under section 21.2(a)(2) of our Bid Protest Regulations which requires that a protest be filed not later than 10 days after the protester knows its basis for protest. Bid Protest Regulations, Sec. 21.2(a)(2), 61 Fed Reg. 39039, 39043 (1996) (to be codified at 4 C.F.R. Sec. 21.2(a)(2)). In its reconsideration request, LWA contends that it did not actually know its basis for protest until it received a letter, dated September 23, 1996, from the contracting officer notifying it that the contract had been awarded to another firm and, therefore, that LWA's proposal would no longer be considered for contract award. LWA states that after it received the August 14 letter which first notified it that its proposal was eliminated from the competitive range, LWA wrote to the contracting officer on August 16 and refuted the agency's determination that its proposal was deficient and would need a "major rewrite" before it could be considered acceptable. LWA also alleges that it had several conversations with the contracting officer who admitted that the agency had improperly evaluated LWA's proposal and told LWA that the proposal would be reevaluated upon LWA's submission of additional information. Thus, LWA contends that it submitted additional information and believed that its proposal was being considered for award until it received the contracting officer's September 23 letter. The contemporaneous record of pertinent events does not support the protester's assertion that it did not know its basis for protest--i.e., that its proposal had been eliminated from the competitive range--until it received the contracting officer's September 23 letter. The contemporaneous record reveals the following chronology. The agency initially rejected LWA's proposal and notified LWA by letter of August 14 that it was no longer being considered for award.