Deloitte Consulting LLP
B-422094; B-422094.2

• During the evaluation of the awardee’s quotation, the Department of Homeland Security identified a potential Organizational Conflict of Interest (“OCI”) with one of the awardee’s proposed teaming partners.
• The Agency engaged in discussions with the awardee, in which the awardee informed the Agency that the teaming partner with the potential OCI would be immediately removed from the team and would not participate in the program upon award.
• Deloitte argued that the agency failed to consider the impact of the teammate’s removal on the awardee’s proposed approach to performance.
• The Agency provided declarations asserting that the agency had considered the elimination of the teaming partner and its impact on performance, but the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) found that those declarations were unsupported by the contemporaneous record and gave them little weight.
• GAO sustained the protester’s argument that the Agency’s evaluation was unreasonable because it failed to consider the elimination of the teaming partner.

Deloitte Consulting LLP; Softrams, LLC
B-421801.2,B-421801.3,B-421801.4,B-421801.5,B-421801.6

DISPARATE TREATMENT

• Both protesters alleged numerous instances where the Library of Congress engaged in disparate treatment by assessing strengths for elements of the awardees’ proposals that were substantially indistinguishable from the protesters’ proposal features that did not receive strengths.
• In most cases, the Agency argued that the strengths in question stemmed from differences between the proposals or that the protesters’ proposal features were, in fact, captured in the evaluation. However, in a few instances, the Agency instead argued that the disparate treatment was insignificant or did not prejudice the protesters.
• GAO found these instances amounted to a concession by the Agency that there had been disparate treatment and sustained these protests, since the competition was extremely close and any change in competitive standing could have impacted source selection.

MATERIAL EXCEPTION

• Deloitte alleged that one of the awardees took exception to a material solicitation requirement by including an assumption about which of two competing data rights contract clauses took precedence that was contrary to the RFP requirements.
• GAO agreed, pointing to the fact that the Agency had declined to incorporate the assumption into the executed contract as evidence that the Agency viewed the assumption as inconsistent with the material terms of the solicitation.

PRICE EVALUATION

• Deloitte argued that the Agency’s price evaluation methodology was inconsistent with the solicitation because it used a sample task order methodology rather than multiplying the offerors’ proposed labor rates by an “estimated number of hours per labor category” as anticipated by the RFP.
• GAO sustained the protest, noting that a correct evaluation would have brought Deloitte’s price significantly closer to all but one of the awardees.

PAST PERFORMANCE

• Deloitte also alleged that the Agency effectively converted the past performance factor into a pass/fail evaluation rather than a comparative one.
• GAO agreed, noting that the Agency conducted only a limited evaluation of past performance relevance and did not meaningfully consider past performance quality.

BEST VALUE DETERMINATION

• The Agency improperly ranked offerors by price in order to perform its best-value tradeoff and then only compared offerors to the lowest ranked awardee.