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Protest of Army Award of Contract for Purchase and Installation of Smoke Detectors

B-193403,B-193411,B-193418 Published: Aug 14, 1979. Publicly Released: Aug 14, 1979.
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Security Assistance Forces and Equipment oHG (SAFE) protested the cancellation of a request for proposals (RFP) and the award of a contract to the second low offeror. Both solicitations were issued by the Army Procurement Agency, Europe, Frankfort Area Procurement Office, for the purchase and installation of smoke detectors in Army-owned family housing. The RFP required offerors to provide a Statitol brand smoke detector or its equivalent. The specifications described the smoke detector as a photoelectric-type smoke detector when in fact it was a ionization-type smoke detector. Upon learning of the ambiguous smoke detector description, the specifications were amended and under the new specifications ionization-type smoke detectors were not acceptable. SAFE resubmitted the lowest offer and again offered the Statitol smoke detector. SAFE maintained there was nothing in American or German law to support the decision to preclude ionization-type detectors from consideration. Thereafter, the agency conducted a technical evaluation of the smoke detectors proposed by SAFE and the other offerors, and canceled the solicitation in order to allow it to revise specifications to include both ionization and photoelectric smoke detectors. SAFE objections relating to the RFP specifications alleged defects, which were apparent on the face of the RFP, should have been protested prior to the closing date for receipt of offers. The protest of the agency's decision to cancel the RFP was untimely. However, the agency improperly found the awardee's technical proposal to be technically acceptable where RFP specifications required smoke detectors with accessories to be manufactured in the United States and the awardee offered a foreign made alarm bell. Finally, the agency could not have accepted the offer made by SAFE as an agent for another firm, since SAFE was not authorized to enter into contracts with the Government on behalf of another firm. The protest was dismissed in part, denied in part, and sustained in part.

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