Joint Venture of Comint Systems Corp. v. United States

100 Fed. Cl. 159, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1432, 2011 WL 3010681
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedJuly 15, 2011
DocketNos. 11-400 C, 11-416 C
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 100 Fed. Cl. 159 (Joint Venture of Comint Systems Corp. 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
Joint Venture of Comint Systems Corp. v. United States, 100 Fed. Cl. 159, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1432, 2011 WL 3010681 (uscfc 2011).

Opinion

RULING ON PLAINTIFFS’ MOTIONS TO COMPEL SUPPLEMENTATION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE RECORD

SWEENEY, Judge.

Before the court are the following: (1) a motion filed by plaintiff NetServices & Associates, LLC (“NetServices”) to compel supplementation of the administrative record (“NetServices’s motion”); (2) a motion filed by plaintiff Joint Venture of Comint Systems Corporation & EyeIT.com, Inc. (“Comint”) to compel supplementation of the administrative record (“Comint’s motion”)1; and (3) plaintiffs’ joint supplemental motion to compel supplementation of the administrative record (“joint supplemental motion”). These motions arise in this consolidated, postaward bid protest, wherein plaintiffs allege that the United States Department of Defense (“De[161]*161fense Department”), through the Washington Headquarters Service (“WHS”) at the Pentagon, among other things, violated statutes and regulations, failed to adhere to the evaluation factors set forth in the solicitation, and manipulated the evaluation process during its acquisition of Net-Centric Integrated Enterprise Information Technology Services (“NIEITS”). Plaintiffs assert that the agency-assembled administrative record is incomplete and that a complete record would contain evidence that is (1) related to specific allegations raised in their complaints and (2) necessary for effective judicial review.2 Net-Services emphasizes that plaintiffs’ requests, while styled as motions to “supplement,” seek nothing more than the compilation and presentation of a complete agency-assembled record. Ultimately, plaintiffs seek to “complete” the record that was developed contemporaneously with the WHS’s decision-making process and do not request the incorporation of “extra-record” evidence.3

Defendant and three awardees of NIEITS contracts, defendant-intervenors NetCentrics Corporation (“NetCentrics”), Digital Management, Inc. (“DMI”), and PowerTek Corporation (“PowerTek”), oppose plaintiffs’ motions, in part, because some evidence plaintiffs seek to include in the record concerns plaintiffs’ challenges to Amendment 5 of the solicitation. Defendant and DMI have moved to dismiss those portions of plaintiffs’ original complaints related to Amendment 5 on the grounds that the protests are untimely, and defendant and defendant-intervenors assert that the record should not incorporate materials that support an untimely protest.4

The issue before the court at this juncture is whether the agency-assembled record is incomplete, not whether portions of the complaints must be dismissed on the timeliness grounds raised by defendant and DMI. For the reasons set forth below, NetServices’s motion and Comint’s motion are granted in part and denied in part, and plaintiffs’ joint supplemental motion is granted in part and denied in part as moot. Furthermore, in light of the instant ruling and plaintiffs filing amended complaints, the motions to dismiss portions of the original complaints filed by defendant and DMI are denied as moot.

I. BACKGROUND

Various entities within the Defense Department contracted with several companies that provided information technology (“IT”) support in the following areas: help desk, server, network, and applications. The WHS eventually sought to “combine existing legacy support contracts to obtain a full range of integrated enterprise net-centric IT supplies and services that provide[d] all users with responsive and efficient access to common information and services on a daily basis, including timely disaster business recovery support.” AR 8. To that end, the WHS developed the NIEITS procurement, which enabled the Defense Department “to acquire seamless, reliable, and responsive enterprise solutions for IT services ... that improve existing services resulting in a stable and secure enterprise IT network which meets the functionality, speed, and capacity expectations of end users while complying with Department of Defense ... and Federal rules and regulations.” Id. at 6.

On August 2, 2010, the WHS issued a solicitation for a multiple award, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract to small businesses for the provision of IT solutions [162]*162through performance of a broad range of services that included the integration of several types of support critical to the services being acquired. The NIEITS solicitation consisted of three elements: (1) the Basie Contract; (2) Task Order 1, Enterprise IT Operations Services; and (3) Task Order 2, Enterprise IT Engineering Support Services. Offerors were required to submit proposals based upon all three elements by September 13,2010.

Fourteen offerors submitted proposals. The WHS determined that each proposal satisfied the minimum eligibility requirements set forth in the solicitation, and all fourteen offerors were invited to give oral proposal presentations. The period during which offerors gave oral proposal presentations concluded on October 4, 2010. On January 19, 2011, the WHS issued Amendment 5 to the solicitation, which informed offerors that the work specified in the solicitation for Task Order 1 and Task Order 2 “no longer reflected] the Government requirements.” Id. at 6688. Pursuant to Amendment 5, the WHS did not award Task Order 1 and Task Order 2 with the Basic Contract. Nevertheless, the WHS, through Amendment 5, advised offerors that “pricing submittals for Task Order 1 and Task Order 2 [would] be used for evaluation purposes only for Factor 3: Price for award of the Basie Contract, as originally indicated in the solicitation to all offerors.” Id.

Thereafter, the WHS determined that nine of the fourteen proposals were ineligible for a Basic Contract award. Of the remaining five proposals, three — those submitted by DMI, NetCentrics, and PowerTek — were recommended for award based upon the source selection authority’s determination that they represented the best value to the government. On March 1, 2011, the contracting officer notified offerors of the WHS’s intention to award three contracts under the NIEITS procurement to DMI, NetCentrics, and PowerTek. The WHS awarded those contracts on April 6, 2011.

NetServiees filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) on April 15, 2011. In its protest, NetSer-viees alleged that the WHS failed to evaluate proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria set forth in the solicitation and made improper assumptions about its proposal. The GAO dismissed NetServices’s protest on June 17, 2011. Comint also challenged the WHS’s awards by filing a protest with the WHS on April 18, 2011. In its protest, Com-int alleged that post-submission amendments, including Amendment 5, materially changed the requirements of the solicitation and claimed that the WHS improperly evaluated its proposal. The WHS denied Comint’s protest on June 1, 2011. Comint filed its protest in the United States Court of Federal Claims (“Court of Federal Claims”) on June 20, 2011, and NetServiees filed its protest three days later. The court consolidated the protests on June 24, 2011.

II. PLAINTIFFS’ MOTIONS

A. Plaintiffs’ Requests

In its motion, NetServiees asserts that the 14,000-page agency-assembled record “fails to incorporate key documents necessary to resolve allegations” set forth in the original (and now amended) complaints. NetSer-vices’s Mot. 2.

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100 Fed. Cl. 159, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1432, 2011 WL 3010681, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/joint-venture-of-comint-systems-corp-v-united-states-uscfc-2011.