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Matter of: Baxter Healthcare Corporation--Reconsideration File: B-253455.5 Date: July 5, 1994

B-253455.5 Jul 05, 1994
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Highlights

Request for reconsideration is denied where the protester has not shown that the decision contained errors of fact or law and instead merely repeats arguments which were previously considered by our office. Baxter had protested that McGaw's bid should have been rejected as unbalanced. The agency finally determined that McGaw's bid was not materially unbalanced. McGaw's was effectively the only eligible bid: of the two other bids. Offered prices which the VA had found were unreasonably high and which were. Baxter's had been submitted by a bidder who was suspended. That our decision was premised on two errors of law.[1] We briefly address each. Baxter argues that there is no legal authority for what it refers to as "dividing a day into hours.

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Matter of: Baxter Healthcare Corporation--Reconsideration File: B-253455.5 Date: July 5, 1994

Request for reconsideration is denied where the protester has not shown that the decision contained errors of fact or law and instead merely repeats arguments which were previously considered by our office.

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DECISION

1. Baxter also asserts that our decision was premised on a factual error. In Baxter's view, the award actually took place after the suspension was lifted, since the document issued on the morning of December 21 stated that McGaw had been selected for award "effective February 16, 1994." After considering the parties' extensive briefing of this point during the initial protest, we concluded that the evidence supported the agency's position that the reference to February 16 as the effective date of award was an error (corrected by the agency on December 30), and that the award date was, indeed, December 21. Baxter's request for reconsideration on this point offers no new factual or legal argument, and merely disagrees with our conclusion, which does not provide a basis for reconsideration. 4 C.F.R. Sec. 21.12(a).

2. The one exception is where the pricing structure is so grossly front- loaded as to be tantamount to requiring an advance payment. FAR Sec. 52.214-10. For the reasons explained in our initial decision (and not challenged by Baxter in its request for reconsideration), McGaw's bid could not properly be rejected on that basis.

3. Although the sole eligible bid cannot properly be rejected as materially unbalanced, it may be rejected if the contracting officer determines that its prices are unreasonable as to price. FAR Sec. 14.404- 2(f). In this case, however, the record did not support such as finding.

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