DevTech Systems, Inc.

B-284860.4 Aug 23, 2002 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights A firm requested that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) reimburse its costs of pursuing a protest of a contract award for advisory and technical assistance services. GAO recommended that USAID reimburse the protester for its protest costs. View Decision DevTech Systems, Inc., B-284860.4, August 23, 2002 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION DevTech Systems, Inc. requests that we recommend that it be reimbursed the costs of filing and pursuing its protest challenging the award of contracts to the Academy for Educational Development (AED) and Creative Associates International, Inc., (CAI) under request for proposals (RFP) No. M/OP-99-644, issued by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), for advisory and technical assistance services. We recommend that USAID reimburse DevTech for its protest costs. This request for reimbursement of costs follows a long history of repeated protests and corrective actions by USAID. Initially issued in 1999, the RFP provided for the award of multiple indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts for a 3-year period. The successful contractors under the RFP will be required to provide USAID with short-term advisory and technical assistance in the areas of education, training, telecommunication/information technologies and related human development. The RFP stated that the awards would be made to the offerors submitting the proposals representing the best overall value to the government, with technical merit being considered more than twice as important as price. The RFP listed the following technical evaluation criteria: understanding of the scope of work; corporate capability; management structure; and past performance. The agency included four proposals, including those submitted by DevTech, AED and CAI, in the competitive range. The agency forwarded written discussion questions to each of the competitive range offerors, and requested, received and evaluated revised proposals. Based on this evaluation, the agency determined that the proposals submitted by AED and CAI represented the best value to the government, and on February 17, 2000, awarded contracts to those firms. After requesting and receiving a debriefing, on March 7 DevTech protested the awards, contending that the agency had failed to conduct meaningful discussions with it, that the agency's evaluation of its proposal was unreasonable, and that the selection of the proposals submitted by AED and CAI for award was unreasonable. DevTech specifically argued that the agency had failed to inform it during discussions of a perceived weakness or deficiency in its past performance, which caused DevTech's proposal to receive a relatively low rating under the past performance criterion. In response to the protest, the agency took corrective action by "conven[ing] an evaluation panel whose function will be to carry out a fresh technical evaluation of the proposals of those four companies originally in the competitive range." The agency argued that its proposed corrective action rendered the protest academic, given that "a new round will take place and, of course, a new award pattern may take place at the completion of that round." Agency Report/Corrective Action Letter (Apr. 5, 2000) at 1-2. We agreed, and dismissed DevTech's protest as academic on April 12, 2000. /1/ A new technical review panel reevaluated the original and revised proposals of the competitive range offerors. The new panel members were "advised to obtain all new past performance feedback and were not given access to the comments collected or created by the original technical panel." Agency Report (Oct. 20, 2000) at 6; Tab U, Negotiation Memorandum (Aug. 8, 2000), at 2. The panel chose not to conduct discussions. The panel assigned DevTech's proposal a technical score significantly lower than that received in the prior evaluation. Based on this reevaluation, the agency again determined that AED's and CAI's proposals represented the best value to the government, and authorized commencement of the contracts previously awarded to those firms. On September 26, DevTech filed another protest, primarily arguing that it did not receive meaningful discussions on the weaknesses and deficiencies identified by the new panel for the first time during the reevaluation that formed the basis for DevTech's proposal's significantly lower score, including under the past performance criterion. We agreed, sustained the protest, and recommended that the agency reopen and conduct appropriate discussions with all competitive range offerors, request revised proposals, and make a new source selection decision. /2/ DevTech Sys., Inc., B-284860.2, Dec. 20, 2000, 2001 CPD Para. 11. The agency conducted written discussions with the competitive range offerors. AED, CAI, and DevTech submitted revised proposals by April 23, 2001.