The Government Accountability Office upheld a protest by Sparksoft Corporation of an award of a task order to Softrams, LLC. This followed a request
The Government Accountability Office upheld a protest by Sparksoft Corporation of an award of a task order to Softrams, LLC. This followed a request
for quotations issued by the Department of Health and Human
Services for business operations support center services. In general, the agency deemed Sparksoft's quotation to possess marginally higher technical merit than Softrams's quotation.
Nevertheless, it asserted that Sparksoft's additional technical merit did not justify a price premium of approximately 2 percent. The agency concluded that Softrams's quotation hence offered the best value to the government.
Regarding the evaluation criteria of Corporate Experience, the agency awarded both Sparksoft and Softrams a high confidence rating. Despite acknowledging Sparksoft's “significant highly relevant experience,” the agency only recognized Softrams's “relevant experience.” According to the RFQ, a vendor would achieve a high confidence rating solely if it demonstrated “significant highly relevant experience.” As such, the GAO concluded that assigning a high confidence rating to Softrams's quotation contradicted the RFQ.
This outcome might have been averted had the agency refrained from detailing the rating methodology in the RFQ, only revealing the evaluation criteria.
The GAO also upheld the protest due to the agency's unreasonable evaluation of the awardee's oral presentation. Specifically, the GAO concluded that the agency erred in not penalizing Softrams for neglecting to address a required matter, mistakenly blaming the question's lack of clarity.
However, the GAO asserted that the agency explicitly demanded the omitted matter, and it was thus unreasonable not to penalize the awardee for the oversight.
Having established that the aforementioned errors inflicted competitive prejudice upon the protester, the GAO recommended that the agency reevaluate Softrams's quotation and reimburse Sparksoft for the costs of the protest, including reasonable attorneys' fees.