B-297136.10; B-297136.11, TPL, Inc., June 29, 2006

B-297136.10; B-297136.11, TPL, Inc., June 29, 2006 TITLE: B-297136.10; B-297136.11, TPL, Inc., June 29, 2006 BNUMBER: B-297136.10; B-297136.11 DATE: June 29, 2006 ************************************************** B-297136.10; B-297136.11, TPL, Inc., June 29, 2006 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: TPL, Inc. File: B-297136.10; B-297136.11 Date: June 29, 2006 David P. Metzger, Esq., Kristen E. Ittig, Esq., and Michele Mintz Brown, Esq., Holland & Knight LLP, for the protester. William R. Stoughton, Esq., Kristen G. Schulz, Esq., David A. Churchill, Esq., and Kevin C. Dwyer, Esq., Jenner & Block LLP, for General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, Inc., an intervenor. Robert R. Fleck, Esq., Tara C. Mack, Esq., and Leslie A. Nepper, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency. Louis A. Chiarella, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. A conflict of interest does not exist merely because the same contracting agency or contracting agency employees both prepare an offeror's past performance reference and perform the evaluation of offerors' proposals. 2. Protest challenging the evaluation of the protester's past performance is denied where the record establishes that the agency's evaluation was reasonable and in accord with the stated evaluation criteria. 3. Protest challenging the evaluation of technical proposals is denied where the record establishes that the agency's evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the evaluation criteria; a source selection official's decision not to accept the findings and ratings of agency evaluators is unobjectionable if otherwise supported by the record. 4. Price/technical tradeoff was reasonable where source selection official identified technical distinctions between competing proposals and specifically determined that higher technically rated proposal represented best value despite higher cost. 5. Protest that the contracting agency was biased against the protester and conducted the procurement in bad faith is denied where the record does not contain any evidence of bias or bad faith on the part of the agency. DECISION TPL, Inc. protests the award of a contract to General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GD-OTS) under request for proposals (RFP) No. W52P1J-04-R-0179, issued by the Army Field Support Command (AFSC), Army Materiel Command, Department of the Army, for conventional ammunition demilitarization services. TPL argues that the agency's evaluation of offerors' proposals was unreasonable, and that the resulting award decision was improper. TPL also asserts that members of the agency's evaluation panel had impermissible conflicts of interest because they were also the source of a past performance reference regarding the offeror. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP, issued on November 17, 2004, contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract for conventional ammunition demilitarization and disposal services for a base year and four 1-year option periods. In general terms, the statement of work required the contractor to provide all the necessary material, equipment, property, and personnel to perform demilitarization and disposal by closed disposal technologies (CDT) for six families of conventional ammunitions: bombs; cluster bomb units (CBU); separate loading propelling charges; high explosive, improved conventional munitions (ICM); high explosive D; and pyrotechnics. Statement of Work (SOW) sect. C.1. The RFP set forth the following evaluation factors and subfactors: +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |1. Small Business Utilization | |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |2. Technical | |------------------------------------------------------------------------| | |A. Program Management | | |---------------------------------------------------| | |B. Technical Approach | | |---------------------------------------------------| | |C. Safety | | |---------------------------------------------------| | |D. Environment | | |---------------------------------------------------| | |E.