Protest of Contract Award by Securities and Exchange Commission

A company protested a contract award by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) for teleprocessing services for budget application in the SEC Office of the Comptroller. All Federal agencies must acquire teleprocessing services under the General Services Administration's teleprocessing services program by Multiple Award Schedule Contracts (MASC) or other methods. The principal evaluation criterion for teleprocessing systems is the lowest system life cost. Government agencies selecting a source for a particular order should prepare a description of the services needed, develop and apply technical and cost evaluation criteria and eliminate from consideration sources which fail to meet the requirements. The protester contended that the SEC omitted or misapplied various cost factors in the protested solicitation, resulting in an erroneous award, and called for an immediate award cancellation and new cost evaluation by the SEC. GAO found the SEC procurement practices to be correct inasmuch as benchmarking is not mandatory in awards totaling less than $200,000 annually, and the protest was denied.