PMTech, Inc., B-291082, October 11, 2002

B-291082 Oct 11, 2002 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights DIGEST Protest challenging the agency's rejection of the protester's proposal as late under a negotiated procurement that required the electronic submission of proposals is denied. Where the protester waited until 13 minutes before the time set for receipt of proposals to transmit its proposal electronically to the agency's web-site and only the cover sheet of the electronic proposal was received by the agency by the time specified. DOE's Office of Classified and Controlled Information Review is responsible for the review of documents for identification of classified information and for determining whether classified documents can be sanitized or declassified for public release. Offerors were informed that the acquisition was completely set aside for small business and that DOE intended to award. View Decision PMTech, Inc., B-291082, October 11, 2002 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION PMTech, Inc. protests the rejection of its proposal, as late, under request for proposals (RFP) No. DE-RP01-02SO20138, issued by the Department of Energy (DOE) for technical support services for the agency's Office of Classified and Controlled Information Review. We deny the protest. DOE's Office of Classified and Controlled Information Review is responsible for the review of documents for identification of classified information and for determining whether classified documents can be sanitized or declassified for public release. Contracting Officer's Statement/Memorandum of Law at 1. The RFP, issued electronically on June 10, 2002 on the agency's Industry Interactive Procurement System (IIPS) web-site (see >), sought proposals for technical services supporting this office. Offerors were informed that the acquisition was completely set aside for small business and that DOE intended to award, without conducting discussions, a single contract for a 24-month base period with 3 option years. The RFP provided detailed instructions for the preparation and submission of proposals. Among other things, the RFP provided that, with the exception of the response to one subfactor concerning the offerors' specialized knowledge in declassification activities, offers must be submitted electronically through the agency's IIPS web site. RFP amend. 04 (July 22, 2002). Specific instructions for preparation of electronic submissions were provided. For example, the RFP provided that proposals were to be formatted in one of a number of identified applications (that is, Adobe Acrobat PDF, Word, WordPerfect, Excel, or Lotus 1-2-3), and that the offer should consist of electronic files to be submitted as three volumes: volume I (Offeror & Other Documents), volume II (Technical), and volume III (Cost/Price). RFP Sec. L.20. As amended, the RFP required proposals to be filed by noon, Eastern Standard Time, on July 25, 2002. RFP amend. 02 (June 28, 2002). The RFP also included the standard "Instructions to Offerors--Competitive Acquisition" clause of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Sec. 52.215-1, which states in relevant part that an offeror is responsible for ensuring that its proposal is submitted so as to be received in the designated government office by the time specified in the solicitation, and that a proposal that was received after the exact time specified was "late" and would not be considered. DOE received a number of offers in response to the RFP, including PMT's. The IIPS log shows that PMT began a series of interactions with IIPS beginning at 11:46:38 a.m. on July 25. See Agency Report, Tab 2, Declaration of DOE's IIPS Project Manager (Sept. 5, 2002), attach. A. The log shows that beginning at 11:47:27 am PMT attempted to submit something to IIPS but an error occurred with the following message "SSL Handshake failed." /1/ According to the log, at 11:49:29, PMT was able to post something to IIPS. However, DOE found that as of noon on July 25 PMT had submitted only the cover sheet for its proposal. Contracting Officer's Statement/Memorandum of Law at 4. After noon on July 25 and on July 26, PMT submitted additional electronic files that comprised its proposal. At least one proposal was timely received by DOE. Supplemental Contracting Officer's Statement (Sept. 24, 2002) at 1. Because the agency had not received PMT's complete proposal by the receipt deadline of noon on July 25, DOE rejected PMT's proposal as being late. This protest followed. PMT complains that the RFP required submission of most of an offeror's proposal through IIPS and that PMT "took all reasonable steps to submit its proposal in a timely manner," in accordance with the solicitation instructions. PMT states that it entered the IIPS at 11:49 a.m. and "uploaded material" and that the failure of IIPS to record PMT's proposal must be as a result of DOE's "computer malfunction." Protest at 5.