Myers Investigative and Security Services, Inc., B-288468, November 8, 2001

B-288468 Nov 08, 2001 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Protest contention that evaluation was unreasonable is sustained where the record shows that the agency treated offerors unequally in its assessment of the past performance information used to justify the selection decision. 2. Protest allegation that an agency's affirmative determination of awardee's responsibility must have been made in bad faith is denied where the record shows that. Even though the agency received information raising questions about how the awardee could have properly certified to state authorities that it had taken the required steps for receiving the state permits needed to perform the instant contract. The information received was not sufficient to require a conclusion that the firm lacked integrity. View Decision Myers Investigative and Security Services, Inc., B-288468, November 8, 2001 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Myers Investigative and Security Services, Inc. protests the award of a 10-month interim contract for guard services for federal buildings in the Lumberton, North Carolina area by the General Services Administration (GSA) to Industrial Loss Prevention, Inc. This contract was awarded pursuant to solicitation No. GS-04P-01-EYC-0073. Myers argues that GSA's evaluation of its and Industrial's past performance was unreasonable because the agency had no basis for some of its conclusions, and because the companies were treated unequally. Myers also argues that the agency's affirmative determination that Industrial is a responsible contractor was made in bad faith. We sustain the protest. BACKGROUND This protest is the third challenge by Myers to a series of actions by GSA related to the award of contracts for armed guard services for various federal facilities in North Carolina. The 10-month interim contract under protest here was awarded to allow GSA additional time to complete corrective action taken in response to an earlier protest by Myers of the award of a 5-year statewide guard services contract. For clarity in discussing the series of contracts at issue in this dispute--and in discussing the differing past performance assessments associated with these contracts--we will refer to each contract action by its duration. Specifically, the contracts are: (1) the prior 5-year contract for guard services in the Lumberton area, which Myers performed until April 30, 2001; (2) the 5-year statewide contract, which was awarded to Industrial on April 25, protested by Myers, and placed on hold while GSA undertook corrective action in response to the protest; (3) a 30-day stopgap contract awarded to Myers on May 1; (4) a 60-day interim contract awarded to Industrial on May 31, again protested by Myers (our Office sustained the protest after GSA elected not to defend its selection decision /1/); and (5) the instant 10-month interim contract awarded to Industrial on July 27 to follow the prior 60-day contract. (The 30-day, 60-day, and 10-month contracts were each limited to the Lumberton area while GSA completes its review of its 5-year statewide contract; separate regional contracts for the Charlotte and Ashville, North Carolina areas have also been awarded on an interim basis while GSA completes it review.) The solicitation for the instant contract was issued on July 6, 2001, as a total small-business set-aside, and sought proposals by July 12. The solicitation anticipated award of a fixed-price requirements contract, for a 4-month base period followed by one 6-month option, to the offeror whose proposal offered "the best value to the Government, considering price and technical factors." RFP Secs. F-3, M-2.1. The RFP identified two technical factors--past performance, and experience and qualification--and advised that the past performance evaluation factor would be approximately twice as important as the experience and qualification factor, and that the two technical factors combined would be more important than price. RFP Sec. M-2. With respect to the past performance evaluation factor, the RFP required offerors to submit reference information for all of their current security guard contracts, and for any such contracts performed within the previous 5 years similar in size to the instant contract. RFP Sec. L-6.5. Potential offerors were advised that the information received from these references, as well as other performance information known to the agency, would form the basis for the past performance evaluation. Id. GSA received proposals from nine offerors in response to the RFP, four of which were not eligible for award for reasons not relevant here.