2000 Digest

Protest of award of construction contract for installation of dock seals is denied. Protester could not rely on oral representation that brand-name seals had to be furnished when solicitation provided that equal items could be substituted; contracting officer's determination that substitute was an equal was not arbitrary or improper.

Solicitation No. 412735-00-A-0058

Protest of award of contract for local area network wiring is denied. Award to higher-priced offer was appropriate where protester's offer failed to address various technical requirements of the solicitation; because changes necessary to accommodate proposal to the requirement would be extensive and substantial, there was no requirement to discuss proposal deficiencies with offeror.

Solicitation No. 363199-00-A-0087

Protest of award of contract for vehicle washing services is dismissed in part and denied in part. Contention that various post office officials improperly refused to provide protester with information about postal purchasing procedures is not within the scope of the protest procedure and is untimely; contention that the solicitation terms were inconsistent with respect to the nature of the services to be performed is also untimely; contracting officials did not improperly withhold information; discussions to obtain lower price were appropriate; and conjecture that awardee might not intend to perform fully does not preclude award.

Solicitation No. 475630-00-A-0151

Protest of failure to receive contract for contract postal unit is sustained. Evaluation of apparently more favorable initial offer was flawed; consideration of protester's offer compared to offer of incumbent contractor to continue performance subsequent to first awardee's repudiation of its contract was arbitrary as based on objections to protester's offer and qualifications not identified in initial evaluation.

Solicitation No. 10350-00-A-0099

Protest contending that services should be ordered pursuant to existing master ordering agreements is denied. Agreements do not require that they be used; postal policy does not require that orders be placed with small woman-owned business; as protester has declined to participate in alternate solicitation for the services, disagreement with contracting officer's apparent view of its capabilities need not be resolved.

Solicitation No. 052684-00-A-0078

Protest of determination of offeror's lack of capability is dismissed as untimely. Protester is responsible for protest's nondelivery when sub-mission was incompletely addressed.

Solicitation No. 608-94-00

Protest of failure to receive highway mail transportation contract is denied. Where principals of corporation were also principals of another corporation which previously performed the route unsatisfactorily, that firm's past performance may be considered in determining current firm's capability and supported the determination that that firm lacked capability to perform.

Solicitation No. 362575-00-A-0035

Protest of determination of contractor's lack of capability is denied. Information which accompanied proposal failed to establish that protester had the experience which the solicitation required.

Solicitation No. 102590-00-A-0165

Protest that specification for mail preparation system are restrictive is denied. Protester has not met its burden to establish that use of cycle speed as a proxy for throughput is clearly unreasonable; claim of bias is not established, and its other objections to solicitation provisions are moot.

Solicitation No. 980-104-00

Protest of award of a mail transportation contract is denied. Emergency contract was not subject to renewal; low offeror was entitled to award according to the stated evaluation criteria; and protester's remaining contentions did not warrant relief.

Solicitation No. 102590-00-A-0098

Protest of failure to be prequalified for participation in module of solicitation for advertising services is dismissed in part and denied in part. Protester’s contention that its failure to be prequalified resulted from the animus of a postal manager is not established; protest of the extension of the prequalification process was untimely raised after additional submissions were due; contention that other offerors were improperly rewarded for breach of their customers’ confidentiality is not established; prequalification of only two sources for the module was permissible; and complaint that orders were improperly placed under prior contracts is for resolution as contract dispute.

Solicitation No. 980-129-00

Protest of determination of lack of capability to receive a mail transportation contract is denied. Contracting officer did not act arbitrarily in concluding that offeror had failed to demonstrate his financial capability to perform the route.

Solicitation No. 475630-00-A-0180

Protest of evaluation of offers for corrugated boxes is denied. Protester does not meet its burden in objecting to technical evaluation of successful offeror; as evaluated, it and successful offeror were substantially similar. While offers were incorrectly evaluated on the basis of f.o.b. origin prices inconsistent with the solicitation's terms, successful offeror remains low when f.o.b. destination prices are evaluated.

Solicitation No. NTL 00-001

Protest of award of trailer leasing contract is dismissed as un-timely. Protester who learns of award must diligently pursue readily available information relevant to its protest; absent that diligence, protest based on information conveyed to it coincidentally more than ten days after it knew of the award is untimely.

Protest of award of a contract for interactive voice response services is dismissed as untimely; timeliness is measured from date protester learned of contract award, not from date it received information concerning the award in response to a Freedom of Information Act inquiry.

Protest of cancellation of solicitation without award is dismissed as untimely; misaddressed letter returned to protester without delivery is not effective protest.

Construction contractor’s protest of its failure to be prequalified for competition for contracts is denied. Firm was properly excluded from the prequalified list for lack of sufficient evidence of comparable project experience and for failing stated test for financial capability, making protester’s objections to other aspects of the evaluation immaterial.

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