BNUMBER: B-270354.3
DATE: June 11, 1997
TITLE: Ogden Support Services, Inc.--Reconsideration, B-270354.3,
June 11, 1997
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Matter of:Ogden Support Services, Inc.--Reconsideration
File: B-270354.3
Date:June 11, 1997
Ronald K. Henry, Esq., and Mark A Riordan, Esq., Kaye, Scholer,
Fierman, Hays & Handler, for the protester.
Henry J. Gorczycki, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of
the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the
decision.
DIGEST
There is no basis to reconsider a decision which had found that the
protester was not an interested party to protest an awardee's proposal
where the request for reconsideration does not show error in the
decision's finding that the evaluation of the protester's proposal was
reasonable and where the original protest did not challenge the
evaluation of a higher-rated, lower-priced intervening proposal.
DECISION
Ogden Support Services, Inc. requests reconsideration of our decision,
Ogden Support Servs., Inc., B-270354.2, Oct. 29, 1996, 97-1 CPD para. 135,
denying in part and dismissing in part its protest of an award to SSI
Services, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. 95-Z06, issued by
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
We deny the request for reconsideration.
Under our Bid Protest Regulations, to obtain reconsideration, the
requesting party must show that our prior decision may contain either
errors of fact or law, or present information not previously
considered that warrants reversal or modification of our decision. 4
C.F.R. sec. 21.14(a) (1996). Repetition of arguments made during our
consideration of the original protest and mere disagreement with our
decision do not meet this standard. R.E. Scherrer, Inc.--Request for
Recon.,
B-231101.3, Sept. 21, 1988, 88-2 CPD para. 274 at 2.
Ogden's request for reconsideration has not shown that our decision
contained any errors of fact or law, nor has it identified
information not previously considered which warrants reversal or
modification of our decision.
Ogden's original protest included allegations that the CIA evaluated
Ogden's and SSI's proposals unreasonably and unequally. Our decision
reviewed Ogden's allegations concerning the CIA's evaluation of
Ogden's proposal and found that the evaluation was reasonable. Then,
turning to Ogden's allegations concerning the CIA's evaluation of
SSI's proposal, we found that Ogden was not an interested party to
protest the evaluation of SSI's proposal because an intervening
offeror with a higher-rated, lower-cost proposal was in line for award
ahead of Ogden, even assuming Ogden's allegations about the evaluation
and selection of SSI were meritorious.
Ogden's request for reconsideration does not challenge our findings
concerning the reasonableness of the CIA's evaluation of Ogden's
proposal, but rather alleges that we improperly failed to consider its
allegations of unequal evaluations and improperly found Ogden not to
be an interested party to protest the evaluation of SSI's proposal.
The focus of Ogden's protest was that the CIA was biased in favor of
SSI and conducted the procurement to ensure that SSI was awarded the
contract. The protest included numerous, detailed allegations of
unreasonable evaluation of Ogden's and SSI's proposals, but not a
single allegation regarding the evaluation of the other offerors.
Indeed, Ogden consistently and quite specifically identified this area
of its protest as allegations of the CIA's applying different
evaluation standards "to Ogden and SSI." Ogden's protest clearly did
not allege that the proposals of offerors other than SSI were
evaluated unequally in relation to each other. In any event, even if
Ogden had generally alleged "unequal treatment of all offerors" as it
now contends it did, such a general allegation would be insufficient
to constitute a protest under our Bid Protest Regulations, 4 C.F.R. sec.
21.1(c)(4) (1996). Government Technology Servs., Inc. et
al.,B-258082.2 et al., Sept. 2, 1994, 94-2 CPD para. 93 at 4-5; Federal
Computer Int'l Corp.--Recon., B-257618.2, July 14, 1994, 94-2 CPD para. 24
at 1-2.
As stated in our prior decision, Ogden's protest characterized its
lowest-rated, lowest-ranked proposal as technically similar to the
proposal ranked just ahead of it. Although that proposal had a
slightly higher rating than Ogden's proposal, its cost was several
million dollars lower than Ogden's. Thus, since we found that Ogden's
proposal was reasonably evaluated, and since the evaluation of the
intervening proposals was not protested, the ranking of Ogden's
proposal would not change in relation to those intervening proposals,
even assuming as meritorious all of its allegations about the
evaluation and selection of SSI's proposal, including those couched in
terms of unequal treatment. Therefore, we properly determined that
Ogden was not an interested party to protest the evaluation of SSI's
proposal and dismissed that portion of Ogden's protest. See Premier
Nurse Staffing, Inc.--Recon., B-258288.3, Apr. 3, 1995, 95-1 CPD para. 174
at 5; Government Technology Servs., Inc. et al., supra at 4-5.
Ogden also alleges that we failed to adequately address its protest
allegation that its final evaluation score was unreasonable because
the score allegedly decreased from the preceding round of evaluations,
even though the CIA stated that Ogden's proposal had improved as a
result of discussions. As stated in our prior decision, Ogden based
its allegation about the total scores on arithmetic averages of the
individual evaluators' scores. However, the total scores were not
based on the average of the individual scores, but rather on scores
reached by a consensus of the evaluators, and Ogden's final consensus
score did increase over its earlier consensus score. We thus
correctly determined that Ogden's allegation had no merit. In any
case, the final round of evaluations was complete and separate from
any earlier evaluation and, as such, the results of the prior
evaluations are not relevant to the final evaluation, which Ogden did
not show was unreasonable. See Delta Sys. Consultants, Inc.,
B-201166, June 23, 1981, 81-1 CPD para. 519 at 7.
The request for reconsideration is denied.
Comptroller General
of the United States
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