Protest against Alleged Deficiencies in Procurement

A company protested against a contract award on the basis of alleged deficiencies in the procurement. The protest was denied because: an allegation that the agency wrongfully terminated sole-source negotiations was untimely and the issue raised did not justify exception to timeliness rules; an agency employee's knowledge of certain situations between competing firms did not establish awareness of "misappropriation" of proprietary data; the agency's evaluation of price without considering options was in accordance with the solicitation; evaluation of proposals on the basis of the entire spread of points available in scoring evaluation factors was proper; and cost was properly used as a determinative factor for award since the proposals were essentially equal technically.