1999 Digest

Solicitation No. 102590-98-A-0146

Protest of terms of solicitation for woven plastic mail sacks is denied. Contracting officer has provided prima facie support for requirement that sacks have particular form of edging, and protesters have not met burden of showing that the requirement lacks a reasonable basis.

Incumbent mail transportation contractor's protest that service is being solicited competitively instead of being added to its existing contract is denied. Neither the Postal Service's Incumbency Policy Statement or the provisions of the protester's existing contract entitle it to the added service.

Solicitation No. 752-53-99

Protest of determination of box delivery route offeror's ineligibility is denied. Protester was not entitled to rely on contract specialist's oral advice inconsistent with solicitation's express terms; requirement for adequate competition did not preclude protester's disqualification, and award to remaining offeror was not invalid as excessive in price.

Solicitation No. 100-7-09

Protest of determination of offeror’s lack of capability to perform mail transportation contract is denied. Offeror’s substantial understatement of costs associated with route supported the determination; contracting officer did not have obligation to conduct discussions with offeror when offer could not be improved without substantial revision; and offer as revised in the course of the protest remained unrealistic.

Solicitation No. 150-27-99

Protest of failure to receive award of mail transportation contract is denied. Determination that offeror was not capable was reasonable when offeror could not operate route personally along with other contracts currently held, and route could not otherwise be operated economically.

Solicitation No. P.S. 980-12-99

Protest of failure to receive award of mail transportation contract is denied. Determination that offeror was not capable was reasonable when offeror could not operate route personally along with other contracts currently held, offeror did not provide requested evidence of financial capability and of his ability to obtain necessary operational resources.

Solicitation No. 150-45-99

Protest of determination of offeror's lack of capability to perform mail transportation contract is denied. Protester's contention that transportation specialist failed to attempt to contact it to arrange pre-award conference fails for lack of proof; record supports determination of offeror's lack of financial capability.

Solicitation No. 335660-99-A-0066

Protest of evaluation of offeror's sample drug testing devices is denied. Speculative suggestions of circumstances which may have lead to devices' failures to pass test are insufficient to support its objections to the tests; objections to use of testing firm is untimely raised; firm's previous com-petitive involvement with offeror does not warrant discrediting firm's description of videotape record as immaterial to offeror's theory of testing improprieties.

Solicitation No. 089913-99-A-0052

Protest of award of a contract for lighting replacement is denied. Low offeror's proposal offering an alternate to specified brand-name items was properly considered. While advice to offeror that the alternate was unacceptable and that its proposal must be revised to be satisfactory constituted discussions, those discussions did not require that discussions be held with other offerors.

Solicitation No. ISAL 99-01

Protest of award of segment under international airlift solicitation is dismissed in part and denied in part. Protest of evaluation of routing with technical stop is untimely, since that evaluation was discussed before offers were due; contentions that protester's offer should have been more highly rated are unsupported by the evaluation criteria; and decision to award to a higher-ranked foreign technical offer despite its higher evaluated price was consistent with evaluation scheme and not inconsistent with solicitation's price preference for U.S. air carriers.

Solicitation No. 412735-99-A-0258

Protest of award of contract for the recycling of paper and cardboard is denied; protester was not entitled to rely on its understanding of the contracting officer's oral explanation of the price evaluation scheme contrary to the solicitation's terms.

Solicitation No. 150-125-99

Fourth lowest offeror on mail transportation contract lacks standing to challenge determination of low offer's capability, since it would not be in line for award if the protest were to succeed. Further, affirmative deter-minations of capability are not for review absent evidence of fraud, abuse of discretion, or failure to apply definitive criteria of capability, and record here reflects that determination was not an abuse of discretion.

Protest of failure to receive contract for facility relamping project is denied. While solicitation's evaluation scheme and elements of the evaluation were flawed, rejection of unreasonably low offer because of the risk of performance failure it presented was appropriate, and grounds asserted by protester to justify its price did not require overturning that determination.

Limited Competition Solicitation

Protest of award of contract for Carrier Route Vehicles is denied That price was more important than performance evaluation factors did not preclude award to more highly evaluated higher-priced offer; protester failed to meet its burden of establishing that the evaluation of offers was unreasonable.

Solicitation No. 632-286-99

Protest of failure to receive award of highway mail transportation contract is sustained. Where low offeror proposed to provide service as specified, solicitation evaluation scheme did not contemplate consideration of "best value" factors in award decision, and offeror was entitled to award if found capable. While partners' past performance information could be considered in that determination, some of the information relied on was stale, and record did not reflect why offeror was not capable here when it had previously been found capable on another contract upon consideration of the same past performance information.

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