Protest of Contract Award by Air Force

A company protested the award of a contract to a competitor on the basis of: (1) awardee's bid was below costs; (2) awardee's bid was nonresponsive; (3) awardee's bid was mathematically unbalanced; (4) agency report was incomplete and fraudulent; (5) a lack of factual basis to support award pending protest; (6) agency failed to apply definite responsibility criteria to prima facie buy-in; and (7) a lack of adequate competition. These protests were made first by telephone and later by letter. The protest was denied on the grounds that: (1) bid price which is low and below the bidder's cost of performance is not a matter for GAO review; (2) no merit was found to the allegation that the awardee's bid was nonresponsive; (3) the difference in the prices contained in the awardee's bid was not found to be so great as to render it mathematically unbalanced; (4) the agency's report was not incomplete and fraudulent; (5) the protester failed to show that the award was not advantageous to the Government; (6) responsibility criteria were not found to be definitive; and (7) there was no evidence of an attempt to exclude any firm from bidding. The protest was denied.