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[Complaint Regarding the Award of Cooperative Agreements]

B-207612 Nov 05, 1982
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Highlights

A firm filed a complaint concerning the Small Business Administration's award of cooperative agreements for management and technical assistance to one firm for four geographic areas and to another firm for one geographic area. The complainant: (1) criticized the solicitation because it was structured into four task areas and, therefore, the complainant assumed that four awards were to be made; (2) asserted that the agency's evaluation process did not adequately consider the complainant's lower cost or caliber of work; (3) questioned the expertise of one awardee to fulfill the requirements in four geographic areas; (4) claimed to have submitted a lower cost proposal than the other awardee. GAO stated that it does consider complaints from prospective contractors to foster compliance with grant terms, and statutory and regulatory requirements; however, GAO will consider the propriety of the award only where there is a showing that the agency chose the cooperative agreement process to circumvent the procurement laws or regulations or that there has been a conflict of interest. In this case, there was no such showing. Accordingly, the complaints were dismissed.

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