[Protest Against Contract Award Under HUD Solicitation for Enforcement Testing]

A firm protested a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contract award for ad hoc enforcement testing, contending that it should be given the award and the awardee should be allowed to participate as its subcontractor, or not at all. The protester argued that: (1) HUD never adequately explained why it was not awarded a contract under the original solicitation; (2) the awardee's decision to act on its own violated its contractual relationship with it; (3) HUD improperly awarded the contract; (4) the agency interfered in its contractual relationship with the awardee when it sent a copy of the solicitation directly to the subcontractor; and (5) the rejection of its proposal indicated a biased, improper evaluation. GAO noted that: (1) the protester did not file a protest until 5 months after it believed the cancellation was somehow improper, and the protest, therefore, was untimely filed; (2) the teaming agreement between the protester and the awardee was for a limited purpose and was dependent on the viability of the original solicitation; and (3) it would not consider the breach of contract allegation because it was a dispute between private parties and was beyond the scope of its bid protest function. GAO found that: (1) HUD did not intentionally interfere with the protester's contractual relationship with the awardee; (2) contracting agencies are required to obtain full and open competition in procurements; (3) the provision of a copy of the solicitation to a prospective prime contractor was in accordance with the statutory requirement; (4) the protester's disagreement with the agency's evaluation did not render the evaluation unreasonable; (5) the protester has the burden of proof when improper conduct on the part of government officials is alleged; (6) the allegation that the protester was eliminated from competition only 2 weeks after its proposal was submitted did not prove favoritism on the part of the agency; and (7) there was no useful purpose in holding a bid protest conference since the protest was without legal merit. Accordingly, the protest was dismissed, and the request for proposal preparation costs and attorney's fees denied.