[Protest of VA Rejection of Technical Proposal as Unacceptable]

A firm protested the rejection of its bid under a Veterans Administration (VA) solicitation which governed a two-step procurement of a hospital intercom and radio system, contending that: (1) the solicitation was ambiguous with regard to the requirements for which VA found the bid technically unacceptable; and (2) VA unfairly rejected the bid without discussions while conducting negotiations with other offerers about deficiencies in their bids. GAO held that: (1) since the solicitation made no mention of commercial product availability, VA acted improperly in rejecting the bid because the protester's product was not commercially available at the time the bid was submitted; (2) since the solicitation did not expressly require offerers to bid products that were on the Federal Supply Schedule, VA acted improperly in rejecting the bid because the offered product was not on the Schedule; and (3) VA acted improperly in conducting negotiations with other offerers while rejecting the protester's offer because their offers were no less deficient than the protester's. Accordingly, the protest was sustained. GAO did not recommend termination of the awarded contract but did recommend that VA take steps to avoid similar deficiencies in future procurements.