[Protest of Navy Contract Award]

A firm protested a Navy contract award for architect-engineer (A-E) services, contending that the Navy's evaluation of offers was neither in accordance with the stated evaluation criteria nor with pertinent provisions of a Defense Acquisition Regulation because the Navy failed to consider the volume of previous Department of Defense (DOD) contracts received by the awardee. As evidence that the Navy did not consider previous awards to the awardee, the protester cited eight contracts awarded or to be awarded to the awardee by the Navy in the last 7 years. GAO review of an agency selection of an A-E contractor is limited to examining whether that selection is reasonable. GAO found that the Navy was using outdated evaluation information on the awardee's previous contracting. Accordingly, GAO notified the Navy that an attempt should be made to update information concerning prior A-E contract awards between evaluation and final recommendation. In spite of this shortcoming, GAO was not convinced that the award was improper or that, even taking into consideration updated information, the evaluation results would have been different. Furthermore, Defense Acquisition Regulations state that previous contracts should be considered, but do not provide for excluding an offeror just because it has done work previously for the agency. The record showed that the awardee was chosen because of its extensive experience on similar projects, the quality of its staff, and past performance on DOD contracts. GAO saw nothing improper about considering a prior contract. Accordingly, the protest was denied.