Centech Group, Inc. v. United States

CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedJune 1, 2018
Docket17-2031
StatusUnpublished

This text of Centech Group, Inc. v. United States (Centech Group, Inc. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Centech Group, Inc. v. United States, (uscfc 2018).

Opinion

In the United States Court of Federal Claims No. 17-2031C Filed Under Seal: May 29, 2018 Reissued: June 1, 2018 1

************************************ * CENTECH GROUP, INC., * * Plaintiff, * Denial of Post-Award Bid Protest; * Blue & Gold Fleet, L.P. v. United v. * States, 492 F.3d 1308 (Fed. Cir. * 2007); 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b)(4); THE UNITED STATES, * 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A); Denial of * Permanent Injunction Defendant, * * and * * SALIENT CRGT, INC., * * Defendant-Intervenor. * * *************************************

J. Bradley Reaves, ReavesColey, PLLC, Chesapeake, VA, for Plaintiff; Of Counsel, Beth V. McMahon, Reaves Coley, PLLC, Chesapeake, VA.

Stephen C. Tosini, Senior Trial Attorney, Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Robert E Kirschman, Jr., Director, Deborah A. Bynum, Assistant Director, United States Department of Justice, Civil Division, Commercial Litigation Branch, Washington, D.C., for Defendant; Of Counsel, Charles G. McCarthy, Assistant Regional Counsel, U.S. General Services Administration, Office of Regional Counsel, San Francisco, CA.

OPINION AND ORDER

DAMICH, Senior Judge

On December 26, 2017, Plaintiff Centech Group, Inc. (“Centech”) filed this post- award bid protest challenging the decision of the General Services Administration (“GSA” or “Agency”) to deduct 600 points from Centech’s self-score in an award of

1 The original Opinion was filed under seal. The parties have conferred as to the necessary redactions and those redaction have been made in this public opinion. Redacted sections appear with brackets as follows: “[. . .].” 1 contracts in connection with the Alliant 2 government-wide acquisition contract (“GWAC”) under Request for Proposals No. QTA0016JCA003 (“The RFP” or “Solicitation”). 2 The GWAC is a Multiple Award, Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (“IDIQ”) contract to provide information technology (“IT”) services to a wide variety of federal agencies. In its protest, Centech alleges that GSA abused its discretion by failing to exercise any discretion whatsoever. Specifically, Centech alleges that GSA acted unreasonably by deducting points from its score solely for the lack of a signature that was beyond Centech’s control especially in light of the fact that GSA could have verified or clarified Centech’s leading edge technology (“LET”) relevant experience through the information it had on hand or by reaching out to the identified contracting officers (“CO”). Centech, therefore, requests the Court to enter judgment on the administrative record in its favor and restore its award eligibility.

The Court adopted the litigation schedule as provided by the parties and entered its scheduling order on January 5, 2018. Pursuant to the scheduling order, the Administrative Record was timely filed on January 19, 2018. Defendant-Intervenor, Salient CRGT, Inc., was granted leave to intervene on February 2, 2018. 3

On February 9, 2018, Centech filed its motion for judgment on the administrative record (“Pl. Mot.”). Defendant timely filed its response to Centech’s motion for judgment on the administrative record and cross motion for judgment on the administrative record on March 3, 2018 arguing that (1) Centech’s protest is untimely, or in the alternative, that (2) GSA reasonably required a CO’s signature for certification of certain projects.

The parties timely filed their respective responses and replies with briefing completed on March 26, 2018.

On April 10, 2018, the Court granted defendant’s unopposed motion to supplement the record to reflect a change in scoring to one of the awardees on the procurement.

2 Centech originally filed its protest at the GAO which was dismissed on December 20, 2017, without any decision on the merits because another bidder had challenged the same procurement in this Court. Five other related bid protests were also filed in this Court and assigned to the undersigned. See OBXtek, Inc. v. United States, Case No. 17-1849C; Octo Consulting Group, Inc., v. United States, Case No. 17-2056C; Capgemini Gov’t. Solutions LLC v. United States, Case No. 18-3C; Harris IT Services Corp. v. United States, Case No. 18-24C; and Dynetics, Inc., v. United States, Case No. 18-481C. Two of them have since been voluntarily withdrawn. See Harris IT Services Corp. v. United States, Case No. 18-24C at ECF No. 17; Capgemini Gov’t. Solutions LLC v. United States, Case No. 18-3C at ECF No. 47. 3 Defendant-Intervenor did not participate in the briefing. 2 For the reasons that follow, the Court DENIES Centech’s motion for judgment on the administrative record and GRANTS defendant’s cross-motion for judgment on the administrative record.

I. Facts

A. The Solicitation

GSA first published notice of its intent to procure under the RFP in FedBizOps in January 2014. AR at 1. GSA made its first draft RFP public in March 2015, AR at 412, and received more than 900 comments regarding draft RFPs by December 2015. AR at 1891.

On June 24, 2016, GSA issued the RFP. AR at 1887. The RFP provided for a 5- year base period, one 5-year option period, and a total ceiling value of $50 billion for all task orders. AR at 1386, 1334. The RFP further provided that GSA would issue multiple awards to the top sixty highest-rated offerors on a best-value bases to “the highest technically rated offerors with a fair and reasonable price.” AR at 1581-82. Offerors were to self-score their proposals in the following categories: relevant experience; past performance; systems, certifications, and clearance; and organizational risk assessment. AR at 1517-80. GSA would then verify the scoring during proposal evaluation. AR at 1582. Based on the offeror’s answers, the scoring worksheet auto-calculated its score out of a possible 83,100 points. AR at 30306. In the event of a tied score, “all Offerors precisely tied at the 60th position will receive an award.” AR at 1582. The awardees would then be permitted to bid on a series of fixed-price, cost reimbursement, time-and- materials, and labor-hour task orders to provide IT services to various federal agencies. AR at 1333.

Relevant to this protest is the evaluation under LET relevant experience projects. Offerors could earn points for LET relevant experience. AR at 1556. The RFP provided for offerors to identify as many as 30 different leading edge projects by verifying up to three previous leading edge projects in each of the following 10 areas: (1) artificial intelligence; (1) autonomic computing; (3) big data; (4) biometrics; (5) cloud computing; (6) cyber security; (7) health IT; (8) mobile IT; (9) the internet of things; and (10) virtual networking. AR at 1559. It defined LETs as “highly sophisticated and cutting edge developments in the extensive field of information technology. . . .” AR at 319.

The RFP included the requirement that the offerors use a particular template, Form J.P-3, to document their LET experience in accordance with section L.5.2.3.1.1 of the RFP. AR at 1539. Under section L.5.2.3.1.1: “Any other format will be rejected as a material non-conformity.” AR at 1539. The RFP was explicit, “[i]n order to receive points for each submitted Leading Edge Technology Relevant Experience project . . . [t]he completed Attachment J.P-3, Relevant Experience (Leading Edge Technology) Project Template must be signed by a Contracting Officer (“CO”) with cognizance over the submitted project.” AR at 1556; see also AR at 645-46 (J.P-3 form for signature).

3 B. Published Answers Regarding Signature Requirement

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