Protest of Fixed-Price Contract Award

A firm protested the award of a Department of Transportation (DOT) contract for helicopters and related support. The firm contended that DOT erroneously determined that the awardee offered only domestic source end products and therefore failed to evaluate the firm's proposal in accordance with the Buy American Act. Also, the award to the other firm contravened a request for proposal (RFP) requirement specifiying that the flight-tested helicopter must be one from which the contracted helicopter was directly derived. The firm contended that DOT erred in the technical evaluation of its proposals and failed to apply evaluation criteria consistently. It contended that DOT had no reasonable basis to determine that the awardee was a responsible prospective contractor. Finally, it contended that the domestic economic price adjustment clauses included in the awardee's contract bore no relation to the costs it will actually incur for the foreign produced components. The awardee and DOT contended that the awardee certified it would furnish a domestic end product, and that compliance with this certification was a matter of contract administration and not for GAO consideration. DOT contended that the awardee's end product was domestic because the cost of the air vehicle, which would be manufactured in Texas, would exceed 50 percent of the cost of all the components. DOT further contended that the assessment of the flight-tested helicopter's potential adaptability to meet the RFP specifications and their determination that the proposed helicopters could be directly derived was reasonable. It contended that its determination to use the price adjustment clause based on industry-wide price indexes and to treat all offerors equally was reasonable. GAO held that the addition of the 6-percent differential required by the Buy American Act would not have changed the order in which the offerors stood. GAO agreed with DOT that the intention of the requirement that the flight-tested aircraft be directly derivative of the contracted aircraft was that the test aircraft have the potential to meet the agency's needs. It was held that standards for questioning an agency evaluation of a technical proposal were not met by the protester. Because the protester did not allege fraud, the agency determination of the awardee's responsibility was not questioned. The use of the price adjustment clauses was held to be irrelevant. The protest was denied.