Sun Chemical Corporation--Costs, B-288466.4, December 7, 2001

B-288466.4 Dec 07, 2001 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights DIGEST Request for reimbursement of protest costs is denied where agency decides to take corrective action in response to supplemental protest allegation but the issue on which the corrective action was based is not clearly meritorious. Each offeror was required to submit. Samples were to be tested and evaluated in accordance with the factors listed in section M of the RFP to determine compliance with all of the characteristics listed for examination in the solicitation. Press trials were to be conducted on an I-8 press. Award was to be made to the firm whose proposal was most advantageous to the government. These other factors included three mandatory technical evaluation criteria against which offerors' samples were to be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. View Decision Sun Chemical Corporation--Costs, B-288466.4, December 7, 2001 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Sun Chemical Corporation requests that our Office recommend that it recover the costs, including attorneys' fees, incurred in connection with one of its supplemental protest allegations challenging the award of a contract to SICPA Securink Corporation under request for proposals (RFP) No. BEP-01-04, issued by the Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), to obtain black and green intaglio ink and varnish for application to new United States paper currency. We deny the request. Each offeror was required to submit, as part of its offer, samples of the black ink, green ink, and varnish it proposed to furnish if awarded the contract. RFP Sec. L at 52. Samples were to be tested and evaluated in accordance with the factors listed in section M of the RFP to determine compliance with all of the characteristics listed for examination in the solicitation. Id. at 53. In this regard, while the solicitation required the supplier to be responsible for most testing of these materials to ensure their compliance with the stated performance requirements, RFP Specification Para. 4.2.1, the BEP assumed the responsibility for evaluating the inks and varnish on BEP equipment for compliance with the requirements of RFP Specification Para. 3.5, "Printing Performance Requirements," and Para. 3.6, "Printed Work Requirements," since these evaluations necessitated the use of BEP equipment. RFP Specification Para. 4.2.4. Press trials were to be conducted on an I-8 press, which runs at speeds of 8,000 sheets per hour, and on an I-10 press, which runs at speeds of 10,000 sheets per hour. RFP Specification Paras. 3.5.4 and 6.2. Award was to be made to the firm whose proposal was most advantageous to the government, considering price and other factors. These other factors included three mandatory technical evaluation criteria against which offerors' samples were to be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. If a sample failed to meet any mandatory criterion, the technical evaluation was to "cease immediately" and "further evaluation [would] not be considered." RFP Sec. M.1.(a)(3)A.I. Two of the three mandatory criteria were applicable to the inks. The first criterion, "Health and Safety," stated both that the inks must not emit hazardous substances during printing or any other production or storage process, and that ink samples causing any adverse effect upon BEP employees would be rejected as technically unacceptable. /1/ The RFP did not identify a particular test to determine compliance with the health and safety criteria, but treated compliance as a matter incidental to the entire evaluation and testing process. The second criterion, "Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Content," stated that inks containing greater than 12.0% by weight of VOCs would be rejected as technically unacceptable. Samples that passed all of the mandatory criteria were to be evaluated against two "gradable" criteria to determine the relative quality of each offeror's performance with respect to the specification's printing and processing requirements and its printed work requirements. Hence, while the BEP was required to evaluate the samples against these requirements to determine compliance with the minimum standards, for each of these gradable criteria, the BEP was to evaluate each offeror's sample relative to other offerors' samples and award the maximum number of points available to the offeror providing the best overall performance. SICPA and Sun were the only firms to submit offers by the February 9, 2001 closing date. SICPA, the incumbent supplier of these inks, submitted an offer for "the same high quality Aqua ink system used today in BEP production." SICPA Proposal Cover Letter at 1. The BEP's laboratory tests of both offerors' samples demonstrated that they complied with applicable requirements, including the mandatory criterion for VOC content of the inks.