[Protest of Corps of Engineers Contract Award to Any Other Bidder]

A firm protested an Army Corps of Engineers contract award to any other bidder under a solicitation, contending that it should have received the award because it was the low responsive bidder if its offer of a prompt payment discount was considered in bid evaluation. GAO found that the failure of the Corps to include a clause in the invitation for bids which excluded consideration of such discounts did not give the protester the right to have that factor evaluated. The government must include such factors in a solicitation before they can be considered. Since the solicitation did not list prompt payment discounts as an evaluation criterion, the agency could not legally consider the factor. Accordingly, the protest was denied.