Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, B-292476, October 1, 2003

B-292476 Oct 01, 2003 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Is sustained. The record raises serious concerns that awardee may have problems in this area. Contracting officer's affirmative determination of the awardee's responsibility is not reasonably based where. Southwestern Bell asserts that Adelphia is ineligible for award because it falsely certified that none of its principals had been indicted. Detailed proposal preparation instructions were provided. Offerors were required to provide detailed information concerning relevant contracts performed within the last 5 years. Offerors were informed that. That is: A decision on the technical acceptability of each offeror's technical proposal shall be made. Will be considered for award. The RFP stated that the agency would use the "performance-price trade-off" basis for award and that past performance and price were equally weighted. View Decision Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, B-292476, October 1, 2003 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Southwestern Bell Telephone Company protests the award of a contract to Adelphia Business Solutions, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. F34608-03-R-5012, issued by the Department of the Air Force for commercial communication services at McConnell Air Force Base (AFB), Kansas. /1/ Southwestern Bell challenges the agency's past performance evaluation and its affirmative determination of Adelphia's responsibility. In addition, Southwestern Bell asserts that Adelphia is ineligible for award because it falsely certified that none of its principals had been indicted. We sustain the protest. The RFP, issued December 12, 2002, provided for the award of a fixed-price contract for local voice and data communication services for McConnell AFB for a period not to exceed 5 years. Detailed proposal preparation instructions were provided, which required, among other things, that offerors submit their proposals in three volumes: (1) technical, (2) past performance, and (3) price and contracting information. With respect to the past performance volume, offerors were required to provide detailed information concerning relevant contracts performed within the last 5 years. The RFP provided that proposals would be evaluated against the following evaluation criteria: technical, past performance, and price. Offerors were informed that, under the technical evaluation criterion, proposals would be evaluated on a pass/fail basis, that is: A decision on the technical acceptability of each offeror's technical proposal shall be made. Only those offers determined to be technically acceptable, either initially or as a result of discussions, will be considered for award. Technically acceptable proposals would then be evaluated under the past performance and price criteria. The RFP stated that the agency would use the "performance-price trade-off" basis for award and that past performance and price were equally weighted. RFP at 20. The RFP stated that in evaluating past performance risk the agency would use data from a variety of sources, including the offerors' proposals and other government and commercial sources. /2/ Offerors were also informed that the agency would place strong emphasis on the offeror's record of past performance of jobs of comparable complexity and similar technical requirements, and that the offeror's organization itself would be evaluated with respect to, among other things, "[its] [r]ecord of integrity and business ethics." RFP at 21. The RFP also included the "Certification Regarding Debarment, Suspension or Ineligibility for Award," as required by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Sec. 9.409(a). The certification included in the RFP required the offeror to identify in its certification whether "to the best of its knowledge and belief, . . . the offeror and/or any of its principals" had been debarred, suspended, proposed for debarment or declared ineligible for award, or had been within a 3-year period prior to the date of its offer convicted of various crimes or had certain civil judgments against it, or was presently indicted for, or otherwise criminally or civilly charged, with the commission of certain identified offenses. RFP Sec. K at 6. The Air Force received proposals from Southwestern Bell and Adelphia in response to the RFP. After discussions were conducted, both offerors were determined to be technically acceptable by the agency's technical proposal evaluation team (TPET). Adelphia's evaluated 5-year price was $318,437.70 and Southwestern Bell's evaluated price was $[Deleted]. Agency Report, Tab 15m, Price Competition Memorandum, at 1. The agency evaluated the firms' past performance, relying upon the offerors' past performance proposal volumes, survey input from previous customers, and the agency's own knowledge of the contractors' performance on other government contractors. Both offerors were evaluated as "very good" under the past performance criterion.