Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.

B-414822.4 May 07, 2018 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. (BAH), of McLean, Virginia, requests that our Office recommend that it be reimbursed the costs associated with filing and pursuing its initial protests (B-414822, B-414822.2, B-414822.3) challenging the issuance of a task order to Raytheon Intelligence, Information & Services, of Dulles, Virginia, under task order request (TOR) No. ID04160057, which was issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) for services in support of the Department of the Army, Army Research, Development and Engineering Command. The protester argues that the protest was clearly meritorious and that the agency failed to take timely corrective action in response to that protest. We grant the request in part and deny it in part. We grant the request in part and deny it in part. 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:  Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.--Costs File:  B-414822.4 Date:  May 7, 2018 Kara M. Sacilotto, Esq., Tracye Winfrey Howard, Esq., Craig Smith, Esq., Moshe B. Broder, Esq., and Colin J. Cloherty, Esq., Wiley Rein LLP, for the protester. Andrew Sinn, Esq., and Jaron Chriss, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency. Jonathan L. Kang, Esq., and Laura Eyester, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1.  Protester’s request that GAO recommend reimbursement of protest costs is granted where the agency unduly delayed taking corrective action in response to clearly meritorious challenges to the agency’s evaluation of organizational conflict of interests (OCIs) and the vendors’ oral question and answer responses. 2.  Reimbursement of costs is not recommended for protest arguments that are not clearly meritorious and relied upon distinct and unrelated factual and legal bases. 3.  Protest is not clearly meritorious where the agency had a defensible legal position concerning an OCI protest argument based on conflicting GAO decisions regarding conflicts between a vendor’s OCI mitigation plan and its technical proposal.  In addition to not recommending reimbursement based on this issue, GAO clarifies that a decision suggesting that conflicts between these two elements of a proposal need not be considered or reconciled will no longer be followed. DECISION Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. (BAH), of McLean, Virginia, requests that our Office recommend that it be reimbursed the costs associated with filing and pursuing its initial protests (B-414822, B-414822.2, B-414822.3) challenging the issuance of a task order to Raytheon Intelligence, Information & Services, of Dulles, Virginia, under task order request (TOR) No. ID04160057, which was issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) for services in support of the Department of the Army, Army Research, Development and Engineering Command.  The protester argues that the protest was clearly meritorious and that the agency failed to take timely corrective action in response to that protest.  We grant the request in part and deny it in part.  BACKGROUND GSA issued the solicitation on December 30, 2016, seeking proposals to provide systems engineering and computer resource engineering support for the Army’s Software Engineering Directorate (SED).  Agency Report (AR), Tab 26A, TOR, at 1.  SED provides support services at the request of entities such as the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, cooperative research and development and education agreement partners, and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers.  Id. at 17.  The competition was limited to firms holding GSA’s One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) pool 3 indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contracts.  Id. at 8.  The TOR anticipated issuance of a cost-plus-fixed-fee task order with a base period of 1 year, two 1-year options, and one 6‑month option.  Id. at 13.  The task order will require the awardee to perform lifecycle support services to:  “define concepts, define requirements, plan, manage, develop, sustain, modify, improve, test, train, field, and retire systems and system computer resources in a time frame necessary to meet customer needs.”  Id. at 17; AR, Tab 49, Award Decision, at 6. The solicitation advised vendors that proposals would be evaluated based on the following four factors:  (1) oral questions and answers; (2) capability plan; (3) past performance; and (4) cost.  TOR at 116.  Vendor’s proposals were to be evaluated on a pass/fail basis for the capability plan factor.  Id.