Protest Regarding Responsibility and Responsiveness of Bidders

A firm protested an agency's determination that it was nonresponsible and to the rejection of the next low bid. Review of an initially unfavorable preaward survey concluded that concurrent production under the protester's existing contract and the proposed contract was unavoidable, and, therefore, the protester could not meet the delivery schedule. A reasonable basis existed for determining the protester to be nonresponsible. Since the bidder indicated a bid acceptance period shorter than that contemplated by the agency, there was no duty to seek bid extension and, upon expiration of the bid, award to that bidder would have done serious harm to the integrity of the competitive procurement system. The agency's requests for extensions of the bid acceptance period prior to expiration of the specified bid acceptance period and the subsequent extensions were appropriate. Protests regarding an alleged discrepancy in data on the current contract included in the solicitation were untimely since they were not raised prior to bid opening.