Acceptance of Bid with Acknowledged Error Was Improper

A protester to a contract award contended that the awardee's bid contained a substantial error which would result in the inability of the awardee to perform the contract at its bid price and that the bid had been withdrawn by the awardee after bid opening in violation of procurement regulations. Since the bidder had advised the contracting officer of the error and requested withdrawal but later retracted the request, it is not certain that the bid would have remained low if corrected. Therefore, the contracting officer should have disregarded the bid because of possible prejudice to other bidders.