[Protest of Navy Contract Award]
Highlights
A firm protested a Navy contract award. The solicitation required that a certain component be manufactured by a particular firm, but the firm refused to supply the protester with the component. The Navy informed the protester that it would consider a substitute component but concluded that, since the protester would have difficulty developing a component, it could not successfully perform the contract. The protester argued that: (1) it should have had access to the manufacturer's component; (2) the Navy improperly evaluated the risk involved in considering the substitute component; (3) the offered price was improperly downgraded as being too unrealistic; (4) its price was improperly determined to be unreasonable; and (5) the evaluation scoring was erroneous and inconsistent. GAO held that: (1) the protester failed to protest the manufacturer's actions prior to the closing date for the receipt of proposals making that part of the protest untimely; (2) the Navy reasonably considered the risk involved in accepting a substitute component; (3) the Navy correctly penalized the apparently unrealistically priced proposal; (4) the protester's offered price was unreasonably lower than any other offered price or estimate; and (5) it would have been improper to evaluate the protester's unrealistic price using standard criteria. Accordingly, the protest was dismissed in part and denied in part.