B-400106, Masai Technologies Corporation, May 27, 2008

B-400106 May 27, 2008 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Masai Technologies Corporation, doing business as MTC Integration (MTC), a small business, protests the failure to set aside for Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) small businesses a procurement by the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. 269701, issued to Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) vendors, for information technology support services. We dismiss the protest as untimely because it challenges an alleged impropriety in the RFQ that should have been protested before the initial closing time for submission of quotations. View Decision B-400106, Masai Technologies Corporation, May 27, 2008 Decision Matter of: Masai Technologies Corporation File: B-400106 Date: May 27, 2008 Masai Troutman for the protester. Capt. Megan E. Stephens, Department of the Army, 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 1. Protest filed within 10 days of contracting officer's letter resolving a timely agency-level protest, but after the closing time for submission of quotations, is untimely where the issue protested at GAO is different from the issues raised in the timely agency-level protest. 2. Protester's e-mail to officials in agency small business office, which suggested that a procurement could be set aside for small businesses, was not an agency-level protest, and a subsequent protest at GAO raising that issue, filed after the closing time for submission of quotations, is therefore untimely. DECISION Masai Technologies Corporation, doing business as MTC Integration (MTC), a small business, protests the failure to set aside for Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) small businesses a procurement by the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. 269701, issued to Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) vendors, for information technology support services. We dismiss the protest as untimely because it challenges an alleged impropriety in the RFQ that should have been protested before the initial closing time for submission of quotations. The Army issued the RFQ on March 21, 2008 by posting it on the General Services Administration e-Buy website. The RFQ sought quotations from vendors holding FSS contracts to provide local area network administration and web support for the Defense Medical Standardization Board at Fort Detrick, Maryland. On April 11, the Army posted an amendment to the RFQ, which extended the deadline for submission of quotations to –Friday, 25 April 2008, 2:00 PM (EST).— RFQ mod. 2. MTC filed this protest with our Office on April 25 at 3:44 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Thus the protest was filed after the deadline for submission of quotations.[1] Our Bid Protest Regulations contain strict rules for the timely submission of protests. They specifically require that a protest based upon alleged improprieties in a solicitation that are apparent prior to the closing time for receipt of initial proposals (or as here, quotations) be filed with our Office before that time. 4 C.F.R. sect. 21.2(a)(1) (2008). A limited exception to this rule exists when a protester has filed a timely agency-level challenge to a solicitation, receives an unfavorable answer, and raises the same issue to our Office within 10 days after resolution of the agency-level protest, even if the subsequent protest to our Office is filed after the solicitation closing date. 4 C.F.R. sect. 21.2(a)(3); Rochester Optical Mfg. Co., B-292137.2, Mar. 16, 2004, 2004 CPD para. 120 at 4 n.3. MTC argues that its protest is timely because, in its view, the firm filed two agency'level protests, and then filed this protest within 10 days of the resolution of those agency-level protests. Accordingly, we will consider in turn each of the communications that MTC asserts is an agency-level protest. MTC's first agency-level protest was submitted in a letter that was clearly labeled as an agency-level protest, and was filed with the contracting officer (CO) on April 10. The protest raised a number of issues unrelated to the challenge that MTC now raises. It did not argue for a HUBZone or other small business set-aside. MTC asserts that it filed a second agency-level protest, which did raise the set-aside issue, on April 14. This communication took the form of an e-mail to two agency officials: the associate director of the agency's Office of Small Business Programs, and the deputy director of that office. The April 14 e-mail was not labeled as an agency-level protest--in contrast to MTC's April 10 submission--but simply stated, in part, that –[t]his would have been a prime candidate for Small Business/8a/Hubzone/ other set-aside . . . .