A firm protested a General Services Administration (GSA) contract award for resin, fire retardant, and floor matting, contending that GSA improperly: (1) created a de facto auction and disclosed that it was the low bidder on certain items, since GSA limited preaward surveys to those items; and (2) accepted the awardee's late best and final offer. GAO held that: (1) it would consider the untimely p...

That preaward survey of its plant was limited to certain items offered and a revised best and final offer was subsequently requested. Protest is untimely since protester waited more than 10 working days to learn that similar allegedly improper action was taken with respect to its competitor. The fact that a preaward survey can in a particular case give rise to the inference that an offeror's price...