[Protest of Air Force Contract Award and Refusal To Permit Bid Correction]

A firm protested the award of a contract to another firm under an invitation for bids issued by the Air Force for alterations and repairs to an Air Force base learning center. The protester submitted the lowest bid but, because its bid was considerably lower than the government's estimate, the contracting officer requested the protester to verify its bid. The protester subsequently submitted a mistake-in-bid claim, alleging that it had incorrectly added its estimated costs on the worksheets used to prepare its bid. As a result, the protester requested that its bid be increased. After considering the evidence submitted by the protester to support its claim, the contracting officer found the evidence concerning the mistake to be sufficient to allow the protester to withdraw its bid, but not to be clear evidence of the intended bid price required for correction. Therefore, the Air Force awarded the contract to the second lowest bidder. The protester argued that: (1) the Air Force should have allowed it to correct its bid because the evidence demonstrated its intended bid price; (2) the Air Force did not allow it adequate time to present its mistake-in-bid claim; (3) the Air Force's refusal to permit it to correct its bid denied the government the cost savings available under the bid; (4) the Air Force made the award to the second lowest bidder at a price other than the awardee's bid price; and (5) the Air Force improperly awarded the bid after receiving notice of its protest. GAO determined that: (1) the agency did not lack a reasonable basis for finding that evidence of the asserted mistake and of the intended bid price was not the clear evidence required for correction of the protester's bid; (2) the protester was not denied an adequate opportunity to present its mistake-in-bid claim because it did not submit its claim until 12 days after discovering its mistake and being notified of the Air Force's verification request; (3) the protester was correctly denied the opportunity to correct its bid because it would have been contrary to the integrity of the competitive bidding system to do so; (4) the agency acted properly in accepting late modification of the awardee's otherwise successful bid since reduction in the price benefited the government; and (5) the agency's alleged failure to follow regulations concerning the making of an award notwithstanding the pendency of a protest did not affect the validity of the award. Accordingly, the protest was denied.