Agency Properly Rejected Proposal Submitted to Wrong Email A protester’s proposal was rejected as late by the Department of Homeland Security after

Agency Properly Rejected Proposal Submitted to Wrong Email A protester’s proposal was rejected as late by the Department of Homeland Security after

the agency received the proposal at 7:25 pm and

the deadline was 3:00 pm. The protester argued to the GAO that its proposal was improperly rejected since it sent its proposal on time, by 1:40 pm, to two email addresses listed on the sam.gov website posting of the RFP. However, those two email addresses were different from those specified in the RFP.

After the protester received notice that the email had not been delivered, the protester sent the proposal to the correct email addresses, albeit over four hours after the deadline had passed.

According to the protester, since it had sent its proposal on time to valid email addresses, the fact that the RFP specified other email addresses should be deemed a minor and immaterial deviation in the manner of submitting its proposal.

Additionally, the protester argued that the RFP only required that a proposal be sent by email to the contracting officer and contract specialist, without regard to the email addresses listed in the RFP, and that it complied with the RFP even though it did not use the email addresses in the RFP.

The GAO began its analysis by noting that a protester bears the burden of showing that it timely delivered its proposal to the agency at the specified location.

According to the GAO, the first argument failed because the FAR provisions which excuse minor and immaterial deviations apply to sealed bidding and not to the present solicitation.

The second argument was also rejected, for two reasons. First, for the GAO, the interpretation of the relevant portions of the RFP could leave no reasonably diligent proponent in doubt that it should use the email addresses specified in the RFP. Second, the Office reasoned that the argument was, in effect, arguing that the RFP was patently ambiguous, a matter which had to be raised before the closing time for proposals to be timely.

Lastly, the GAO also noted that, given the alleged ambiguity of the RFP with respect to which email address the proposal should be sent to, nothing impeded the protester from sending the proposal to all of the possible email addresses.