Gold Cross Safety Corporation, B-296099, June 13, 2005

B-296099 Jun 13, 2005 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Gold Cross Safety Corporation protests the U.S. Marine Corps's issuance of a purchase order to Driven2Dare, Inc. under request for quotations (RFQ) No.M6700105Q0032, for a vehicle safety promotion campaign. Gold Cross principally alleges that the agency improperly rejected the firm's quotation based on price alone, without evaluating its technical submission. We deny the protest. View Decision B-296099, Gold Cross Safety Corporation, June 13, 2005 Decision Matter of: Gold Cross Safety Corporation File: B-296099 Date: June 13, 2005 Daniel Lanktree for the protester. J.R. Cohn, Esq., and Julius Rothlein, Esq., U.S. Marine Corps, for the agency. Peter Verchinski, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Agency's failure to evaluate protester's technical submission before eliminating its quotation from competition was unobjectionable where agency reasonably determined that protester's quoted price--which was 20 times the awardee's--was not fair and reasonable, and eliminated quotation from competition on that basis. DECISION Gold Cross Safety Corporation protests the U.S. Marine Corps's issuance of a purchase order to Driven2Dare, Inc. under request for quotations (RFQ) No.M6700105Q0032, for a vehicle safety promotion campaign. Gold Cross principally alleges that the agency improperly rejected the firm's quotation based on price alone, without evaluating its technical submission. We deny the protest. On February 2, 2005, the Corps issued, as a small business set-aside, a combined synopsis/soliciation for a multimedia-based vehicle safety promotion campaign at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The promotion campaign, which was being procured as a commercial item, required 30 days of presentations over the next year, and also required the contractor to produce a safe-driving DVD for reproduction and later distribution as a training resource. Award was to be made on a "best value" basis, with three evaluation factors: technical capability, past performance, and price. Technical capability and past performance, when combined, were signficantly more important than price. Gold Cross, the awardee, and a third vendor submitted quotations by the March 3 due date, quoting prices, respectively, of2,950,000, $150,000, and $363,500. The independent government estimate was $290,000. Due to its high price, the agency rejected Gold Cross's quotation without evaluating the firm's technical submission. [1] The agency then evaluated the remaining two vendors' technical submissions, and determined that Driven2Dare's represented the best value; it thus made award to that firm on March4. Gold Cross challenges the award on several bases. First, it alleges that the agency improperly procured the promotion campaign as a commercial item; the protester asserts that such a campaign is not a commercial item. [2] We dismiss this protest ground as untimely. Our Bid Protest Regulations contain strict rules for the timely submission of protests. They specifically require that a protest based upon alleged improprieties apparent on the face of the solicitation be filed prior to the closing time for receipt of initial proposals (or quotations). 4 C.F.R. 21.2(a)(1) (2005). Here, the designation of the items being procured as commercial items was apparent from the solicitation itself. Gold Cross therefore was required to protest on this basis before the initial closing time. Because it did not do so, this aspect of its protest is untimely and will not be considered. Gold Cross next asserts that the agency improperly eliminated its quotation from the competition based on price alone, without considering the high quality of its technical submission. This argument is without merit. While the RFQ provided for a best value evaluation based on comparative technical and price considerations, the agency also was required to consider whether the protester's quoted price was too high in an absolute sense. In this regard, before awarding a fixed-price contract, an agency is required to determine that the price offered is fair and reasonable. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.402(a). Here, the agency states that it rejected Gold Cross's quotation pursuant to the contracting officer's determination that the quoted price was so high that award to the firm would not be in the public interest, no matter the quality of its technical submission. Contracting Officer's Statement of Facts at 2. This was tantamount to finding that Gold Cross's price was unreasonably high. A price reasonableness determination may be based on various price analysis techniques, including comparison of prices received among themselves and to an independent government estimate (IGE). FAR 15.4041(b)(2).