Zolon PCS II, LLC (1605TA-21-Q-00005)

B-420127.2 Apr 26, 2022 Jump To FULL REPORT VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Zolon PCS, LLC, of Ashburn, Virginia, protests the cancellation of request for quotations (RFQ) No. 1605TA-21-Q-00005, issued by the Department of Labor for enterprise data and information management support services. Zolon contends that the agency unreasonably cancelled the solicitation. 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: Zolon PCS, LLC File: B-420127.2 Date: April 26, 2022 William T. Welch, Esq., and J. Patrick McMahon, Esq., McMahon, Welch and Learned, PLLC, for the protester. Jose Otero, Esq., and Virginia Ackerman, Esq., Department of Labor, for the agency. Christine Milne, Esq., and Scott H. Riback, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest that the agency unreasonably canceled the solicitation is denied where the record shows that the agency had a reasonable basis to cancel the solicitation due to a change in its requirements. DECISION Zolon PCS, LLC, of Ashburn, Virginia, protests the cancellation of request for quotations (RFQ) No. 1605TA-21-Q-00005, issued by the Department of Labor for enterprise data and information management support services. Zolon contends that the agency unreasonably cancelled the solicitation. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The agency issued the RFQ to procure specialized information technology (IT) support services to manage the agency’s data warehousing, data management, and information management systems; implement and develop new software for enterprise data and information management systems; and support the agency’s clients. Agency Report, Exh. 1a, RFQ at 5. The agency received a number of quotations in response to the RFQ and issued a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to Zolon. Contracting Officer’s Statement (COS) at 6. Subsequent to the agency issuing the BPA to Zolon, BruckEdwards, Inc., a competitor of Zolon’s, filed a bid protest with our Office challenging the issuance of the BPA to Zolon. In response to that protest, the agency advised that it would reevaluate quotations and make a new source selection decision. Based on the agency’s proposed corrective action, we dismissed the earlier protest. BruckEdwards, Inc., B‑420127, Sept. 30, 2021 (unpublished decision). During the reevaluation of quotations, the agency’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) advised that the solicitation’s current requirements no longer reflected the agency’s actual needs, and that it was necessary to cancel the solicitation and issue a new, revised solicitation. The agency also concluded, based on its effort to reevaluate quotations in the wake of the BruckEdwards protest, that this would provide an opportunity for it to clarify its evaluation criteria. The agency notified Zolon of the cancellation on February 3, 2022. This protest followed. DISCUSSION Zolon argues that the agency unreasonably cancelled the RFQ. The protester maintains that, in its view, there is not a reasonable basis for the cancellation because the agency continues to have a requirement for the solicited services. Zolon’s protest focuses entirely on the fact that the record produced during the protest does not contain any contemporaneous documentation in support of the agency’s cancellation decision, and instead relies principally on a statement by the contracting officer prepared in connection with Zolon’s current protest. Zolon maintains that, under these circumstances, the agency’s cancellation decision is unreasonable. We find no merit to Zolon’s protest. A contracting agency need only establish a reasonable basis to support a decision to cancel a solicitation in a negotiated procurement. Quality Technology, Inc., B-292883.2, Jan. 21, 2004, 2004 CPD ¶ 29. For example, cancellation is warranted where a solicitation fails to reflect an agency’s actual requirements. Id. at 2. Our review of the record here shows that the cancellation resulted from significant changes to the original requirement. The agency advises that there are three principal areas where significant, new requirements have resulted in the need for major changes to the performance work statement (PWS). We discuss these briefly below. First, the agency advises that, as a consequence of the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the OCIO informed the contracting officer that the solicitation’s PWS needed to be revised to include several significant requirements not previously contemplated. Among other things, the PWS needed to be amended to include IT services to store and analyze unemployment insurance information from each state; build a new national data warehouse for that information; and include a new fraud analytics requirement.