Rho Federal Systems Division, Inc. (75N93020R00011)

B-420192.6 Jul 13, 2022 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Rho Federal Systems Division, Inc., of Durham. North Carolina, a small business, requests a recommendation that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), National Institutes of Health, reimburse the firm's costs of filing and pursuing a protest challenging the award of a contract to Technical Resources International, Inc., of Bethesda, Maryland, also a small business, under request for proposals (RFP) No. 75N93020R00011. Rho, the incumbent contractor, argues that HHS unduly delayed taking corrective action in response to multiple clearly meritorious grounds of protest. 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: Rho Federal Systems Division, Inc.--Costs File: B-420192.6 Date: July 13, 2022 James Y. Boland, Esq., Michael T. Francel, Esq., and Lindsay M. Reed, Esq., Venable LLP, for the requester. Anthony E. Marrone, Esq., and Olufemi Adedoyin, Esq., Department of Health and Human Services, for the agency. Paul N. Wengert, Esq., and Tania Calhoun, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Request for recommendation that procuring agency reimburse the protester’s costs associated with filing and pursuing earlier bid protests is denied where the protester did not demonstrate that any grounds of protest were clearly meritorious when the agency announced corrective action. DECISION Rho Federal Systems Division, Inc., of Durham. North Carolina, a small business, requests a recommendation that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), National Institutes of Health, reimburse the firm’s costs of filing and pursuing a protest challenging the award of a contract to Technical Resources International, Inc., of Bethesda, Maryland, also a small business, under request for proposals (RFP) No. 75N93020R00011. Rho, the incumbent contractor, argues that HHS unduly delayed taking corrective action in response to multiple clearly meritorious grounds of protest. We deny the request. BACKGROUND In June 2020, HHS issued the RFP, seeking proposals from small businesses to provide support services covering a wide range of clinical research data management, safety and pharmacovigilance management for clinical trials and clinical studies of immune-mediated diseases for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Following the submission of proposals and an evaluation, HHS announced the award of the contract to Technical. On September 24, 2021, Rho filed a protest with our Office challenging the award to Technical on the basis of alleged errors in the evaluation of both proposals. In that initial protest (including a supplemental protest filed after HHS provided a debriefing), Rho argued principally that HHS had misevaluated Technical’s costs while failing to make a reasonable cost realism analysis of those costs, misevaluated both firms’ technical proposals, and made an unreasonable source selection decision. Protest at 1-2; Supp. Protest at 1-2. Rho also contended that HHS had evaluated proposals unequally, particularly regarding staffing and key personnel, and had failed to reasonably consider alleged differences in the past performance records of Rho and Technical. Id. On October 19, prior to filing an agency report in response to the protest, HHS announced that it would take corrective action by reevaluating both firms’ proposals and making a new source selection decision. Our Office dismissed the protest as academic on that basis. Rho Fed. Sys. Div., Inc., B-420192, B‑420192.2, Oct. 22, 2021 (unpublished decision). On February 8, 2022, Rho filed a second protest, which it supplemented twice, to challenge HHS’s decision to award the contract to Technical again. The second protest argued principally that HHS had again misevaluated both proposals because it allegedly “did not correct the flaws in [the] initial evaluation that Rho identified in its first and supplemental protests.” Second Protest at 13. Rho then alleged essentially the same grounds of protest to challenge the evaluation of costs, cost realism, technical, and past performance. Second Protest at 2-3. In its agency report responding to the protest, HHS maintained that the new evaluation and source selection were reasonable and consistent with the RFP criteria. Shortly after receiving the agency report, Rho filed a supplemental protest, arguing that documents accompanying the report showed that the agency’s evaluation of Rho was tainted by an organizational conflict of interest.