[Protest of Navy's Rejection of Bid for Electrical Substations]

A firm protested the Navy's rejection of its bid for electrical substations as nonresponsive, contending that: (1) an amendment to the solicitation bonding requirement was ambiguous; (2) the Navy improperly rejected its bid since the solicitation did not inform bidders that an insufficient bid bond would result in bid rejection; and (3) since its failure to meet the bond requirement did not affect its bid price, quantity, quality, or delivery, the Navy should have waived the deficiency as a minor informality or corrected it since its bid was low. GAO held that: (1) since the amended solicitation changed only the amount of the bid bond requirement, it was not ambiguous; (2) the Navy properly rejected the bid as nonresponsive since it included an insufficient bid bond; (3) a nonresponsive bid may not be corrected; (4) although acceptance of the protester's bid would have been in the government's best interest, the Navy properly rejected the bid according to bidding procedures; (5) the Navy properly denied waiver of the bid bond requirement since the protester's bid was higher than the next acceptable bid; and (6) the protester was not entitled to reimbursement for its bid preparation costs since the Navy did not violate any procurement regulations. Accordingly, the protest and claim were denied.