[Protest of Navy Contract Award for Services To Maintain and Update HARDMAN Program]

A firm protested a Navy contract award to another firm for maintenance and upgrade of a data program, contending that: (1) the Navy should have rejected the awardee's proposal because the awardee calculated its labor rates using a prohibited accounting practice; (2) the Navy failed to adjust the awardee's bid price to reflect its subcontractors' use of prohibited accounting practices; and (3) the Navy improperly selected the awardee's lower-priced proposal, even though the protester's overall evaluation score was slightly higher. GAO held that: (1) the protester based its contention regarding the awardee's labor rates on an untenable interpretation of the solicitation; (2) in any event, the Navy adjusted the awardee's bid price upward to reflect its unusual accounting practices; (3) the protester failed to prove that any of the awardee's subcontractors actually used the same accounting methods as the awardee; and (4) the Navy's selection of the awardee's lower-priced offer conformed with a solicitation provision allowing the contracting officer to ignore the overall evaluation scores and make allowances for differences in technical merit. Accordingly, the protest was denied.