The Red Gate Group, Ltd.

B-410466 Dec 31, 2014 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Federal Acquisition Services Team, LLC (FAST), protests the U.S. Special Operations Command's (SOCOM) failure to consider its proposal under request for proposals (RFP) No. H92222-14-R-0019, for acquisition, procurement, and financial management support services. FAST asserts that its proposal, which was transmitted by email, was improperly rejected after the protester attempted to timely submit the proposal and it was "bounced back" by the agency's server for exceeding the applicable size limitation for emails. In the protester's view, the problem occurred as the result of a "systemic failure" of the agency's systems, and the agency therefore should consider the proposal. We deny the protest. We deny the protest. View Decision 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:      Federal Acquisition Services Team, LLC File:                B-410466 Date:              December 31, 2014 S. L. England, Esq., for the protester. Capt. Heather N. Corrothers, and Capt. Matthew W. Ramage-White, Department of the Air Force, for the agency. Frank Maguire, Esq., and David A. Ashen, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest challenging agency’s decision not to consider proposal is denied where protester attempted to submit its proposal prior to the closing time but the transmitting email was rejected as undeliverable by the agency’s server for exceeding the applicable size limitation, and the proposal cannot be located on the agency’s systems; to the extent the protester also contends that problems with the agency server’s implementation of the solicitation’s limitation on size of proposal submissions caused the problems here, the record does not support a conclusion that there was a systemic failure of the agency’s systems for receiving proposals. DECISION Federal Acquisition Services Team, LLC (FAST), protests the U.S. Special Operations Command’s (SOCOM) failure to consider its proposal under request for proposals (RFP) No. H92222-14-R-0019, for acquisition, procurement, and financial management support services.  FAST asserts that its proposal, which was transmitted by email, was improperly rejected after the protester attempted to timely submit the proposal and it was “bounced back” by the agency’s server for exceeding the applicable size limitation for emails.  In the protester’s view, the problem occurred as the result of a “systemic failure” of the agency’s systems, and the agency therefore should consider the proposal. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP here was posted on FedBizOpps on July 30, 2014.  On September 4, the agency amended the solicitation to require that all proposal submissions be emailed to a designated SOCOM email address, but limited the maximum size of “any files coming through on any one email” to 20 megabytes (MB).  RFP, Amend. No. 2, at 6-7; see Contracting Officer (CO) Statement (COS) at 2.  A subsequent amendment extended the proposal due date to 4:30 p.m., Eastern Time, September 15, 2014.  RFP, Amend. No. 4, at 4. At 11:56 a.m. on September 15, the day proposals were due, FAST transmitted its proposal via email to the SOCOM email address designated for receipt of proposals.  Protest at 2, attach. 2; COS at 4.  This email, however, did not reach the designated SOCOM email address, but was rejected by a Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) server, the entry point into the Department of Defense email system.  Protest at 3, attach. 8; COS at 4.  A DISA engineer reports that FAST’s email was “bounced” back to its sender with an error message advising that the email size was too large to be received by the destination server.  DISA Engineer Declaration at 1; see Agency Report (AR), Tab 14, Message Details.  In this regard, the DISA engineer reports that the size of FAST’s email was 24.84 MB, well in excess of the 20 MB limit established by RFP amendment No. 2.  Id. FAST acknowledges receipt of, and attached to its protest, the reply email marked as delivered at 12:02 p.m. on September 15, advising that its message was “undeliverable,” due to “size limit exceeded.”  Protest, attach. 8; see COS at 6.  FAST, however, did not make a further attempt to submit its proposal before the solicitation’s closing time.  Supp. Agency Report, Dec.