Erickson Helicopters, Inc.

B-410787.4 Sep 04, 2015 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Erickson Helicopters, Inc. (Erickson), of McMinnville, Oregon, requests that our Office recommend that it be reimbursed the costs of filing and pursuing its protest of the Department of the Army's award of a contract to Air Center Helicopters, Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, under request for proposals (RFP) No. W912D0-14-R-0002, for air medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) services. We deny the request. We deny the request. 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: Erickson Helicopters, Inc.--Costs File: B-410787.4 Date: September 4, 2015 David M. Nadler, Esq., Justin A. Chiarodo, Esq., and Stephanie M. Zechmann, Esq., Dickstein Shapiro LLP, for the protester. Robert B. Neill, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency. Cherie J. Owen, Esq., and David A. Ashen, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Request for recommendation that agency reimburse costs for filing and pursuing protest is denied where the protest was rendered academic for reasons unrelated to the underlying protest allegations. DECISION Erickson Helicopters, Inc. (Erickson), of McMinnville, Oregon, requests that our Office recommend that it be reimbursed the costs of filing and pursuing its protest of the Department of the Army's award of a contract to Air Center Helicopters, Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, under request for proposals (RFP) No. W912D0-14-R-0002, for air medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) services. We deny the request. BACKGROUND The solicitation sought proposals to provide, for a base period of 12 months with two 1-year options, aerial medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) services in Alaska with rotary wing aircraft, and required that the successful offeror be prepared to perform services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year without any lapse in service. RFP at 8-9. The solicitation also informed offerors that the MEDEVAC service provider could be required to land at isolated un-surveyed landing sites and ranges, and that during night operations, pilots would be required to use night vision devices to facilitate operations. RFP at 9 The RFP required that the successful offeror be prepared to provide additional support helicopter services, as required, such as range support, environmental survey support, and general mission support in other areas. Id. Award was to be made to the offeror submitting the lowest-priced, technically-acceptable proposal. RFP at 95. Upon learning of the award to Air Center, Erickson and another offeror protested the award. Erickson filed its initial protest on November 12, 2014. The Army filed its agency report on December 12, and Erickson filed its comments and a supplemental protest on December 22. GAO established a due date of January 8 for the agency report responding to the supplemental protest. On January 2, the agency informed our Office that its requirements had changed, and that the Army intended to resume performance of MEDEVAC services itself, beginning April 1, 2015. Army Request for Dismissal at 1. As a result, the agency canceled the solicitation and terminated the contract awarded to Air Center. We thereafter dismissed Erickson's protests as academic. Erickson Helicopters, Inc., B‑410787, B-410878.3, Jan. 8, 2015. Erickson thereupon requested that our Office recommend that the agency reimburse the protester its reasonable costs of filing and pursuing the protest. DISCUSSION Erickson asserts that the recovery of protest costs is warranted here because the Army took corrective action in response to Erickson's clearly meritorious protest. The Army contends that its decision to cancel the solicitation and perform the MEDEVAC services in-house was unrelated to Erickson's protest, and therefore did not constitute corrective action in response to a protest. Agency Response to Cost Claim at 2. The agency maintains that it did not take corrective action because it concluded that any of Erickson's protest arguments had merit, but instead chose to cancel the RFP because it concluded that it could perform the contract requirements in-house. Agency Response to Cost Claim at 4-6, 15. Where a procuring agency takes corrective action in response to a protest, we may recommend that the agency reimburse the protester its protest costs where, based on the circumstances of the case, we determine that the agency unduly delayed taking corrective action in the face of a clearly meritorious protest, thereby causing a protester to expend unnecessary time and resources to make further use of the protest process in order to obtain relief. 4 C.F.R. § 21.8(e); CACI Technologies, Inc.--Costs, B‑407923.3, Aug. 13, 2014, 2014 CPD ¶ 321 at 4; Information Ventures, Inc.--Costs, B-294580.2 et al., Dec.