Protest Alleging Proposed Awardees Are Nonresponsible

A company protested the awarding of contracts by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under a solicitation which was a small business set-aside. The company alleged that the proposed awardees were not responsible, because they could not meet certain solicitation requirements and lacked the requisite experience to perform the contracts. Since SBA subsequently canceled a portion of the solicitation because the low offeror was nonresponsible, that portion of the company's protest was moot. GAO does not review protests of affirmative determinations of responsibility unless fraud is shown on the part of procuring officials, or the solicitation contains definitive responsibility criteria which allegedly have not been applied. Since neither exception was alleged, that part of the protest was not subject to review. The company also alleged that one of the awardees was not a small business as required by the solicitation. This allegation was not subject to review by GAO, since by law a protest concerning the small business size status of a low offeror is a matter for decision by SBA. The company argued that, since the awardees had less experience than it had, it should receive the award. This argument was without merit, since the company's proposal did not receive the highest evaluation score and the evaluation was not shown to be unreasonable. The protest was dismissed in part and denied in part.