[Protest of U.S. Marshals Service Contract Award for Employee Relocation Services]

A firm protested a Department of Justice contract award for employee relocation services, contending that: (1) the award was inconsistent with the solicitation's evaluation method, since Justice made award on the basis of price rather than technical merit and experience; (2) the awardee's experience with residential relocations was limited; and (3) the awardee's proposal failed to conform with the solicitation requirements. GAO held that Justice properly awarded the contract to the awardee since: (1) the cumulative experience of its key personnel offset its inexperience; (2) the evaluation was consistent with the evaluation scheme, which stated that price would increase in importance with the degree of technical equality between proposals and would become more important than experience; and (3) the protester untimely filed its protest alleging the awardee's noncompliance with solicitation requirements more than 10 days after it knew the basis for protest. Accordingly, the protest was denied in part and dismissed in part.