In a cautionary decision that reinforces the importance of strict compliance with solicitation instructions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently denied in part and dismissed in part a protest challenging a contractor’s elimination from a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) procurement.

The recent case — FI Consulting, Inc. (FIC) — centers on a seemingly minor formatting error: the inclusion of a corporate logo with embedded text on the cover page of FIC’s quotation. While the protester argued this was a minor informality or the result of ambiguous solicitation language, the GAO disagreed, emphasizing that the USDA had clearly instructed vendors to exclude images containing text from their proposals — including logos.

The Solicitation’s Formatting Standards

Issued under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 8.4 procedures for a five-year blanket purchase agreement (BPA), the Request for Quotations (RFQ) contained strict formatting requirements, warning vendors that failure to follow instructions would be treated as a deficiency, rendering the quotation ineligible for award. Among those instructions: Images were permitted, but only if they did not include text. A Q&A exchange in the solicitation process reinforced this point, clarifying that branding elements, such as logos with text, were not allowed as images.

As stated in the RFQ instructions, the USDA’s justification for this seemingly picayune requirement was that “[t]he [vendor]’s attention to detail is important to the Government as a significant amount of work under the attached [performance work statement] will require the [vendor] to follow detailed instructions, including quality control.” The vendor’s attention to detail in preparing its quote was, thus, a proxy for the expected quality of its performance, as also stated in the RFQ: “The [vendor]’s quot[ation] represents the quality of the performance the Government can expect in the performance of work under this BPA.”

In this way, the USDA employed an approach similar to that reportedly used by the band Van Halen in the 1980s that used to demand that concert venues remove brown M&Ms as a way of telling whether those at the venue had closely read the contract, which included detailed stage set-up instructions.

Despite these warnings, FIC submitted a quotation with its logo — “FI CONSULTING” — as a picture containing text on the cover pages of all volumes. USDA deemed this a failure to follow the RFQ’s instructions and eliminated the proposal prior to full evaluation.

Protest Grounds and GAO’s Reasoning

FIC raised two primary arguments:

1. Latent Ambiguity – FIC contended that the formatting rules were ambiguous and that a reasonable interpretation would exempt company logos from the text-in-image prohibition.
2. Minor Informality – In the alternative, FIC argued that including a logo was a trivial error and should have been waived under FAR 14.405.

GAO rejected both claims.

• No Ambiguity – GAO held that the RFQ was unambiguous. The instruction that “pictures may not contain text” was stated plainly and emphasized in bold. The agency’s response during the Q&A process further eliminated any uncertainty. The GAO found FIC’s interpretation unreasonable, especially in light of the numerous reminders that noncompliance would lead to elimination.
• No Basis for Waiver – The GAO dismissed the second argument outright, noting that FAR 14.405 applies only to sealed bidding under FAR Part 14. Since this procurement was conducted under FAR Subpart 8.4, those procedures did not apply. Even if waiver were permissible, the GAO observed that the agency had the discretion not to waive the requirement — particularly where compliance was integral to the evaluation of vendor reliability.

Key Takeaways for Contractors

This case serves as a sobering reminder for government contractors: Pay close attention to solicitation instructions — down to the formatting requirements. FIC’s protest ultimately failed not due to its qualifications or pricing, but because of a technical violation — one that could have been avoided with a more careful reading of the solicitation.

As agencies continue to stress attention to detail in their solicitations, contractors would be well advised to treat every formatting instruction as a performance requirement. In this procurement landscape, form matters just as much as substance.