B-310454.3, Singleton Enterprises-GMT Mechanical, Joint Venture--Costs, March 27, 2008

B-310454.3 Mar 27, 2008 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Singleton Enterprises-GMT Mechanical, Joint Venture, requests that our Office recommend that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reimburse Singleton's costs of filing and pursuing a protest, which our Office dismissed on the basis of corrective action proposed by the VA. Even though Singleton obtained corrective action in response to the protest, the firm asserts that it should be reimbursed its protest costs because an earlier protest raising the same issue in a similar situation was resolved in Singleton's favor, and therefore, in Singleton's view, this protest should not have been necessary. We deny the protest. View Decision B-310454.3, Singleton Enterprises-GMT Mechanical, Joint Venture--Costs, March 27, 2008 Decision Matter of: Singleton Enterprises-GMT Mechanical, Joint Venture--Costs File: B-310454.3 Date: March 27, 2008 Arthur Wayne Singleton and Gary Michael Thompson, for the protester. Phillipa L. Anderson, Esq., Charlma Quarles, Esq., and Tracy Downing, Esq., Department of Veterans Affairs, for the agency. Paul N. Wengert, Esq., and Ralph O. White, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protester's request that the Government Accountability Office recommend reimbursement of costs is denied where the agency did not file a report in response to a protest that was clearly meritorious, but instead, 2 days after the report was due, announced its intention to take corrective action; thus the corrective action was reasonably prompt, since the protester was not required to incur the costs of beginning to draft comments in answer to an agency report. DECISION Singleton Enterprises-GMT Mechanical, Joint Venture, requests that our Office recommend that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reimburse Singleton's costs of filing and pursuing a protest, which our Office dismissed on the basis of corrective action proposed by the VA. Even though Singleton obtained corrective action in response to the protest, the firm asserts that it should be reimbursed its protest costs because an earlier protest raising the same issue in a similar situation was resolved in Singleton's favor, and therefore, in Singleton's view, this protest should not have been necessary. We deny the request. On September 5, 2007, the VA opened six bids submitted in response to invitation for bids (IFB) No. VA-249-07-IB-0085, for replacement of the roof on –Building One— at the VA Medical Center in Huntington, West Virginia. The IFB had been set aside for service-disabled veteran-owned small business concerns (SDVOSBCs). When opened, the fixed-price bids were, in ascending order of price, as follows: AGS Group $905,497 KAR Contracting $1,185,508 Whelan Properties $1,356,869 Singleton Enters.-GMT Mech., joint venture $1,549,147 Homeland Services $1,658,000 Homeland Security $2,000,000 The VA rejected the lowest bid because of a failure to meet a bonding requirement. The circumstances of the VA's rejection of the next-lowest bid are described in our decision in KAR Contracting, LLC, B-310454, B-310537, Dec. 19, 2007, 2007 CPD para. 226 at 7. The record does not include information on the rejection of the bid by Whelan Properties. The VA then proceeded to consider Singleton's eligibility for award, given its status as a joint venture. On September 26, in response to a request from the contracting officer (CO), Singleton provided the VA a copy of its joint venture agreement. On December 31, the VA informed Singleton that its bid had been rejected because the joint venture agreement showed that the firm was not eligible to compete under the SDVOSBC set'aside in the IFB. On January 10, 2008, Singleton filed a protest with our Office, complaining that the CO's rejection of Singleton's bid as non-responsive was improper, and arguing that the issue of the firm's eligibility for a SDVOSBC set-aside should have been referred to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for its review. On that same date, our Office issued a decision involving another procurement in which Singleton's joint venture agreement had also been rejected by the VA under an SDVOSBC set-aside. In our decision sustaining that protest, we concluded that the VA had failed to comply with its statutory obligation to refer the issue of Singleton's eligibility to the SBA. Singleton Enters.-GMT Mech., A Joint Venture, B-310552, Jan. 10, 2008, 2008 CPD para. 16 at 4. Singleton's January 10 protest--the instant dispute--generated a requirement for the VA to submit an agency report by February 11. See 31 U.S.C. sect. 3553(b)(2)(A) (2000); Bid Protest Regulations, 4 C.F.R. sect. 21.3(c) (2007). On that date the VA did not file its report, although it subsequently indicated that it would respond by February 13.