Request for Reconsideration

A firm requested reconsideration of a decision denying its request for relief from an alleged mistake in its bid which was discovered after the award of a contract. The protester alleged that it erroneously based its bid on a 50 syringe per box unit, the industry standard, rather than the solicitation requirement of 100 per box unit. Relief was denied, because the mistake was clearly unilateral on the part of the protester; the contracting officer was on neither actual nor constructive notice of any possible mistake in the bid. In its request for reconsideration, the firm contended that the contracting officer should have been alerted to the possibility of a pricing error in the bid, because the solicitation packaging requirement was considerably different than the industry standard, and nonmanufacturing distributors such as the protester should be expected to bid 15 to 20 percent higher than the manufacturer's price rather than 50 percent lower, as was the case here. Constructive notice is said to exist where there are factors which reasonably should raise the presumption of an error in the mind of the contracting officer. Under the circumstances of the case, GAO could not reasonably conclude that the contracting officer should have suspected an error in the protester's bid. The solicitation clearly defined the units upon which prices were to be submitted. There was no evidence that the contracting officer was aware of the discrepancy between the prices which nonmanufacturing distributors normally bid and the price the protester submitted. It was concluded that the contracting officer was not on constructive notice of any error and was under no obligation to seek price verification from the protester. Relief is available where the mistake was mutual, or the contracting officer was on actual or constructive notice of error prior to award. Since neither of these applied in this case, the prior decision was affirmed.