Matter of: Kaiser Engineers Hanford Company--Request for Declaration of Entitlement to Costs File: B-249367.5 Date: September 14, 1992
Highlights
PROCUREMENT Bid Protests GAO procedures Preparation costs Administrative remedies Protester is not entitled to award of the costs of filing and pursuing its protest where the agency determined to take corrective action within 3 weeks of the filing of the protest. Our intent is to award costs where. Such action taken early in the protest process is precisely the kind of prompt reaction that our regulation is designed to encourage. It provides no basis for a determination that the payment of protest costs is warranted. Kaiser's request for a declaration of entitlement to costs is denied.
Matter of: Kaiser Engineers Hanford Company--Request for Declaration of Entitlement to Costs File: B-249367.5 Date: September 14, 1992
PROCUREMENT Bid Protests GAO procedures Preparation costs Administrative remedies Protester is not entitled to award of the costs of filing and pursuing its protest where the agency determined to take corrective action within 3 weeks of the filing of the protest.
Attorneys
DECISION
Kaiser Engineers Hanford Company requests that our Office declare the firm entitled to recover the reasonable costs of filing and pursuing its protest concerning request for proposals (RFP) No. DE-RP06-92RL12359, issued by the Department of Energy (DOE). Kaiser filed its protest, B-249367, on July 9, 1992; by letter of July 28, the agency advised our Office and the parties that it would take corrective action. As a result, we dismissed the protest as academic. On August 11, the protester filed a claim with our Office for the costs of filing and pursuing its protest.
Pursuant to our Bid Protest Regulations, where the contracting agency decides to take corrective action in response to a protest, we may declare the protester to be entitled to recover reasonable costs of filing and pursuing its protest, including attorneys' fees. 4 C.F.R. Sec. 21.6(e) (1992). Our regulations do not require that we award protest costs in every case in which an agency takes corrective action in response to a protest. Rather, our intent is to award costs where, based on the circumstances of the case, we find that the agency unduly delayed taking corrective action in the face of a clearly meritorious protest. Here, the agency provided notice of its decision to undertake corrective action within 3 weeks of the filing of the protest. Such action taken early in the protest process is precisely the kind of prompt reaction that our regulation is designed to encourage. It provides no basis for a determination that the payment of protest costs is warranted. See KIME Enters., Inc.--Request for Declaration of Entitlement to Costs, B-241996.5, Dec. 9, 1991, 91-2 CPD Para. 523. Accordingly, Kaiser's request for a declaration of entitlement to costs is denied.