Request for Reconsideration of Department of Commerce Decision

A company requested reconsideration of a decision in which GAO sustained the determination of the Department of Commerce to negotiate a contract for data processing services. The protester stated that negotiation was not necessary because the Department of Commerce had drafted specifications in the past for the same services and it was not impossible for adequate specifications to be drafted. This argument was rejected in the prior decision because Commerce showed that all output situations could not be specified and each offeror's technical proposal had to be reviewed to ascertain whether it possessed the technical flexibility to handle inevitable changes. GAO held that the Department of Commerce was attempting to fulfill its needs, and not trying to obtain information so as to test the responsibility of the offeror. In the prior decision, GAO concluded that the request for proposals (RFP) notified offerors that award would be made to the responsible offeror who submitted the lowest-priced, technically acceptable offer. The protester, disagreeing with that conclusion, contended that some statements in the Department of Commerce report on the protest indicated that it was trying to obtain more than minimum technical acceptability, and instead was looking for some ultimate value instead of the lowest fixed price. GAO, however, determined that the RFP should be interpreted to mean that cost was the controlling factor once the proposals were determined to be technically acceptable. The protester contended that the Department of Commerce should be required to give offerors guidance on what constituted technical acceptablility; GAO, however, held that numerous technical requirements were outlined in the solicitation and the RFP stated that one element for award consideration was the requirement that the offer conform to the solicitation. Accordingly, the prior decision was upheld.