Ausley Associates

B-412548.5 Aug 24, 2016 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Brandes Associates, Inc., of Lone Tree, Colorado, requests that our Office recommend that the Department of the Navy reimburse attorneys' fees and costs that the firm incurred in filing and pursuing a protest under request for proposals (RFP) No. N00024-13-R-3157, issued by the Navy to procure program management services, after the Navy took voluntary corrective action in response to the protest. Brandes argues that the agency did not take timely corrective action in the face of a clearly meritorious protest. 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:  Brandes Associates Inc. File:  B-412548.5 Date:  August 24, 2016 Jason A. Carey, Esq., J. Hunter Bennett, Esq., Kevin T. Barnett, Esq., and Wesley W. Wintermyer, Esq., Covington & Burling, LLP, for the protester. Samantha M. Basso, Esq., Department of the Navy, for the agency. Robert T. Wu, Esq., and Tania Calhoun, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Request for recommendation that agency reimburse protester’s costs is denied where agency took prompt corrective action in response to a supplemental protest and to newly-discovered information that was not previously available to the agency.  DECISION Brandes Associates, Inc., of Lone Tree, Colorado, requests that our Office recommend that the Department of the Navy reimburse attorneys’ fees and costs that the firm incurred in filing and pursuing a protest under request for proposals (RFP) No. N00024-13-R-3157, issued by the Navy to procure program management services, after the Navy took voluntary corrective action in response to the protest.  Brandes argues that the agency did not take timely corrective action in the face of a clearly meritorious protest. We deny the request. BACKGROUND On December 14, 2015, Brandes filed a protest with our Office challenging the agency’s decision to issue a task order to American Electronics, Inc. (Amelex), after a competition between small businesses under the agency’s Seaport-e multiple-award task order contract.  Brandes challenged various aspects of the evaluation of proposals, including that the awardee had engaged in an improper “bait and switch” of key personnel, or failed to inform the agency that various key personnel were unavailable prior to award, and that the agency performed an unreasonable cost realism evaluation of the awardee’s cost proposal.[1]  Protest at 22-25, 26-29. With respect to its first allegation, Brandes pointed to the awardee’s post-award efforts to hire (through public job postings and solicitation of Brandes’s own personnel) employees for nine of the task order’s labor categories, including four categories listed as key personnel in the solicitation.  Id. at 22-25.  With respect to its second allegation, the protester relied on its own market research and pricing methodology to argue that the awardee’s proposed cost was unrealistically low.  Id. at 26-29.  On December 31, the agency provided to the protester and our Office documents in advance of the agency report, which formed the basis for a supplemental protest filed by Brandes on January 11, 2016.  See generally Supp. Protest; see also Request for Costs at 2.  The supplemental protest challenged the rationality of specific aspects of the evaluation of Amelex’s cost proposal and the evaluation of the relative merits of strengths assigned to both proposals.  Supp. Protest at 23-32, 35-37.  The protester also argued that the produced documents showed that Amelex had lost one of its key personnel prior to award but failed to inform the agency of this material change to its proposal.  Id. at 33-34. On January 13, the agency submitted a full agency report to our Office responding to the initial protest allegations.  On January 22, however, the agency informed our Office that it intended to take corrective action.  The agency stated its rationale for corrective action as follows:  “[t]he protest raises concerns to the Agency regarding the evaluation of Key Personnel that necessitates resolution by the Contracting Officer in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation.