Epoch Engineering, Inc., B-276634, July 7, 1997

B-276634 Jul 07, 1997 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights DIGEST The contracting agency reasonably determined that the awardee's conflict of interest mitigation plan adequately avoided or mitigated potential conflicts that might arise if one of the awardee's proposed subcontractors were tasked to do work under particular delivery orders to be issued under an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for engineering and technical support services where: (1) the awardee's proposed conflict mitigation plan included a number of safeguards designed to detect potential conflicts and to assign work under those task orders to the prime and/or another subcontractor. (2) the awardee has proposed more than enough qualified professional personnel who are not employed by the subcontractor with potential conflicts so that the awardee can successfully avoid conflicts and still perform the full scope of work contemplated by the solicitation. View Decision Matter of: Epoch Engineering, Inc. File: B-276634 Date: July 7, 1997 * Redacted Decision DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Epoch Engineering, Inc. protests the Naval Surface Warfare Center's award of an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for engineering and technical support services to Applied Measurement Systems, Inc. (AMSI) pursuant to request for proposals (RFP) No. N00167-95-R-0128. Epoch contends that AMSI is ineligible for award under the express provisions of the RFP because one of AMSI's proposed subcontractors has an unavoidable organizational conflict of interest. Epoch also contends that the Navy unreasonably failed to consider the effect of AMSI's proposed organizational conflict of interest mitigation plan in its technical/management evaluation of AMSI's proposal. [1] We deny the protest. Issued on January 24, 1996, the RFP solicited offers to provide engineering and technical support services for submarine and surface ship acoustical trials for a period of 5 years. The RFP called for the contractor to perform various tasks in response to individual delivery orders issued by the Navy over the course of the contract. The RFP's statement of work (SOW) listed 11 different categories in which work would be performed as follows: (1) submarine and surface ship noise source localization and analysis; (2) submarine silencing effectiveness; (3) transient noise studies; (4) own ship radiated noise monitoring; (5) data analysis and studies in support of the Submarine Maintenance Monitoring Support Office and the Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity; (6) submarine silencing development and design studies; (7) submarine detection and detectability studies; (8) acoustic measurement and data acquisition system development; (9) database management system development and maintenance; (10) low frequency submarine target strength studies and analysis; and (11) acoustic trial direction support. The RFP indicated that the contract would be awarded to the offeror whose offer was determined to be most advantageous to the government after evaluation of technical/management factors and cost. The RFP stated that the technical/ management factors were more important than cost. The technical/management factors were listed, in descending order of importance, as follows: personnel; corporate experience; technical understanding; management plan; and facilities. The RFP included an organizational conflict of interest clause which stated, in pertinent part: "This clause provides examples of certain organizational conflicts of interest which are prescribed by Federal Acquisition Regulation Subpart 9.5. The two underlying principles which this clause seeks to avoid are preventing the existence of conflicting roles that might bias a contractor's judgement and preventing unfair competitive advantage. The following subsections prescribe certain limitations on contracting as the means of avoiding, neutralizing, or mitigating organizational conflicts of interest. . . . . . (d) The Contracting Officer has determined that, in performance of this contract, the contractor will be required to provide technical evaluation of various contractor's offers and products. Contracts involving (a) technical evaluations of contractor's offers or products or (b) consulting services shall not be awarded to a contractor that would advise the Government concerning its own products or activities or those of a competitor without proper safeguards.