Offeror Which Submits Technically Unacceptable Quotation Is Not An Interested Party For Purposes of Challenging the Merits of An Award K2 Aerial

Offeror Which Submits Technically Unacceptable Quotation Is Not An Interested Party For Purposes of Challenging the Merits of An Award K2 Aerial

Applications, LLC filed a protest before the Government Accountability Office after the Department of the Interior awarded a

contract to Valley Air, LLC. K2 challenged the agency’s evaluation of its quotation as technically unacceptable. Additionally, K2 protested the resulting award decision to Valley.

After finding no basis to object to the agency’s conclusion that K2’s quotation failed to demonstrate that it was technically acceptable, the GAO concluded that it was unnecessary to reach the merits of the second aspect of the protest.

According to the GAO, “[a] protester is not an interested party if it is ineligible to receive [an] award under the protested solicitation, or if it would not be in line for award if the protest was sustained.” In this case, the determination that K2’s quotation was technically unacceptable meant that it was ineligible to receive an award and thus not an interested party.

Additionally, the GAO noted another reason for why K2 was not an interested party: K2 would not be next in line for award even if its challenges to the evaluation of Valley Air’s quotation were sustained.

Generally, if “there is an intervening vendor who would be in line for the award even if the protester’s challenges were sustained, the intervening vendor has a greater interest in the procurement than the protester, and [the GAO] generally consider[s] the protester’s interest to be too remote to qualify it as an interested party.”