Specialty Marine, Inc.--Reconsideration, B-292053.2, July 29, 2003

B-292053.2 Jul 29, 2003 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Attributes its prior position to its understanding of GAO precedent and states that it would have considered the protester for a COC if GAO had sustained the protest. Since the decision properly was based on the protest record. Which was posted at the Government Point of Entry on the Internet. Specified that the requirement was open only to holders of an Agreement for Boat Repair (ABR). /1/ Following the receipt of quotations. Notified Specialty that its quotation was not considered because Specialty did not hold and was not seeking an ABR. Was that the Navy's rejection of Specialty's quotation amounted to a finding of nonresponsibility. That the Navy improperly failed to refer it to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for review under its certificate of competency (COC) procedures. /2/ The Navy and the SBA (whose views we sought) maintained that the ABR requirement was not a responsibility matter. View Decision Specialty Marine, Inc.--Reconsideration, B-292053.2, July 29, 2003 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Specialty Marine, Inc. requests that we reconsider our decision in Specialty Marine, Inc., B-292053, May 19, 2003, 2003 CPD Para. 106, denying Specialty's protest of the award of a contract to AEPCO under request for quotations (RFQ) No. N2105130275001, issued by the Military Sealift Command, Department of the Navy, for pre-deployment maintenance and repair of the USNS MOHAWK. We deny the request. The synopsis for the requirement, which was posted at the Government Point of Entry on the Internet, specified that the requirement was open only to holders of an Agreement for Boat Repair (ABR). /1/ Following the receipt of quotations, the agency awarded a contract to AEPCO, and notified Specialty that its quotation was not considered because Specialty did not hold and was not seeking an ABR. Specialty's principal argument, and the only one involved in this reconsideration request, was that the Navy's rejection of Specialty's quotation amounted to a finding of nonresponsibility, and that the Navy improperly failed to refer it to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for review under its certificate of competency (COC) procedures. /2/ The Navy and the SBA (whose views we sought) maintained that the ABR requirement was not a responsibility matter, but instead involved prequalification, such that vendors were required to hold or to have applied for an ABR in order to be eligible for award, pursuant to our decision in Stevens Tech. Servs., Inc., B-250515.2 et al., May 17, 1993, 93-1 CPD Para. 385; there, we indicated that an offeror was not eligible to receive an award where it did not hold, and had not applied for, a required ABR. Id. at 3-4 n.4. In our decision of May 19, however, we noted that, Stevens and the agencies' views notwithstanding, the ABR requirement had all the principal characteristics of a definitive responsibility criterion: a specific and objective standard set out as a precondition to award, designed to measure a prospective contractor's ability to perform the contract. /3/ We stated: It is not clear--and neither agency explains--why a firm's failure to apply for an ABR should change the essential nature of a requirement from one concerning responsibility. We stopped short of deciding whether the ABR requirement was a definitive responsibility criterion, however, in light of the SBA's view that it was not a responsibility matter subject to the COC process. Since referral to the SBA under that process would be pointless in view of the SBA's position, we elected to follow our long-held practice of reviewing agency determinations that the SBA declines to review. See Wallace & Wallace, Inc.; Wallace & Wallace Fuel Oil, Inc.--Recon., B-209859.2, B-209860.2, July 29, 1983, 83-2 CPD Para. 142 at 2. Looking at the merits, we found that because the ABR was required and Specialty did not hold and had not applied for an ABR, the firm's quotation was rightfully rejected whether or not the requirement was a definitive responsibility criterion. Specialty's reconsideration request is based on the view expressed in a letter that the SBA sent to our Office after we issued our decision (and in response to the decision). In that letter, the SBA stated that it had not intended for its submission to our Office during the pendency of the protest to be read as a declination to review the rejection of Specialty's quotation under the COC process if we had declared the ABR requirement a definitive responsibility criterion for referral. Instead, the SBA's post-decision letter stated that the SBA's view expressed during the protest proceedings merely reflected the SBA's understanding of our Office's precedent, and that, if our Office had found that a negative responsibility determination occurred here, the SBA would have considered Specialty for a possible COC.