Protest of Noncompetitive Procurements

B-197259: May 7, 1982

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A firm protested noncompetitive procurements conducted by the Geological Survey on the grounds that they violated applicable regulations and that the prices paid exceeded those obtainable from available competitive sources. The procurements involved the purchase of a quantity of dual-density disk drive features to upgrade single-density disk drives and maintenance services for the disk drives. Originally, the disk drives were leased under a mandatory requirements contract which was later converted to a nonmandatory contract. Subsequently, the leases were converted to purchases. When the Service decided to upgrade several of the units, it placed an announcement of its intended noncompetitive purchases from its supplier in the Commerce Business Daily (CBD). A delivery order to the supplier was awarded the following day. The Survey later announced, in the CBD, its intention to make a noncompetitive award to the same supplier for maintenance services. After suspending the delivery order to consider an offer from the protester, the Survey rejected the protester's offer and ordered the awardee to proceed with performance. During the development of this protest, the Office of Inspector General (IG), Department of the Interior, initiated a review of all procurement activities between the Survey and the awardee over a period of time including the activities protested in this case. The IG found that the Survey permitted the awardee to replace the disk drives, notwithstanding the fact that it rejected the protester's offer because it could not determine whether it intended to upgrade the installed disk drives or replace them. The IG also found that the Survey: (1) issued single delivery orders rather than combining them, enabling it to avoid the required General Services Administration approval for sole-source procurements over $50,000; (2) did not synopsize its procurements in the CBD as required by regulations; (3) provided insufficient time for vendor response in some synopses; and (4) in some cases, issued delivery orders before the synopsis was published. These findings indicated that the Survey's actions reduced the possibility of effective competition and confirmed some of the protester's allegations. Accordingly, the protest was sustained.

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