Computer Information Specialist

Facts of the case

The case involved three parties, that is; CIS which was protesting against the agency decision towards rewarding the contract to another firm OTC through mischievous evaluation criteria that failed to meet the set standards. The protest was sustained based on the fact that the agency made the evaluation criteria through ignoring some vital information presented by the competitive range of 4 firms which included the protestor (CIS) and the awardee (OTC). The protestor maintained poor and inaccurate evaluation criteria by deleting some of the information presented by the proposing firms while the awardee argued that they were rightfully awarded the contract.

Issues

The issues of the case involved a protest by one of the firm within the Industry (CIS) or Computer Information Specialist, Inc. against the agency for misevaluating proposals while making the selection. The protest was sustained based on the fact that the records clearly depicted that the agency’s evaluation criteria and conclusions in relation to the protestor’s proposal (CIS) they were not related to the evaluation criteria or basically with no factual basis. This indicated that the agency largely failed to note two marginal deficiencies in awardees’ proposal.

Decisions

Based on the facts of the case, decision was made where Computer Information Specialist, Inc was protesting the award of a contract to another company (Open Technology Group, Inc (OTC) based on the request for the proposals (RFP) No. NLM 03 101/SAN, that was issued by National Library of Medicine plus National Institutes of Health (NIH) towards acquiring telecommunications support services at the agency’s Bethesda, Maryland campus. According to the notion and the arguments presented and maintained by CIS, the agency basically misevaluated proposals and also made an unreasonable source selection decision. This was based on the detailed evidence on the selection criteria that the agency used which failed to meet the required transparent and ethical standards.

Reasoning

The notion behind the case among the three parties depicted the notion that the criteria that the agency used to evaluate and make the selection decision was wrong and as the agency’s evaluation conclusion in relation to the both proposals was unreasonable. This is based on the analogy and the presented facts after a review on the protest on aggregations that the agency evaluation proposal may have not been reasonable and inconsistent in relation to the solicitation and applicable statutes and regulations on the set standards. The rationale presented by the respective parties in relation to the evaluation criteria was in relation to AR exh. 18 at 2 where the agency argued to have awarded the contract to OTG by the notion that the firm had