Agency Rejection of Low Bid

A firm believed it was the low bidder and protested the award of a contract by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). Bids were solicited for various groups of dairy products on an "all or none" basis for each group. The DLA procurement agent noted that the protesting firm's prices appeared inaccurate. When the agent requested verification by telephone, the bidder stated that prices for the items in question were mistaken, but that the bid for those items was firm. The DLA rejected the bid, however, because one of the items appeared to be clearly mistaken. Despite the bidder's assertion that no error was made, the rejection of the low bid by the agency on the basis of the suspected mistake was held by GAO to be reasonable, since the unit price of one of the items was substantialy below other bids received. Therefore, the protest was denied.