SOFITC3, LLC (B-423083.3)

You should not care.

Category: Technical evaluation, advisory downselect

Date: 6 December 2024

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423083.3

SOFITC3 filed a protest challenging DHS's decision to limit corrective action to reevaluating only Delviom's corporate experience after SOFITC3's initial protest of a cybersecurity task order award. The procurement used a multiphase advisory downselect process, becoming increasingly popular, because they allow government to “downselect” offerors without formal notification of exclusion from further consideration and its subsequent protest trigger. Here, the procurement used a three-phased approach:

• Phase 1: Administrative & security requirements: In this mandatory down-select phase, vendors demonstrated active facility clearance at the top secret level.
• Phase 2: Corporate experience review: Vendors submitted relevant prior corporate experience information. After evaluation, vendors received an "advisory down-select notification" whether to proceed to phase 3.
• Phase 3: Full technical & price evaluation

The protester made two main arguments: (1) if DHS found problems with Delviom's experience evaluation, it must have made similar errors evaluating other vendors' experience, and (2) the agency improperly deviated from the solicitation's phased evaluation process by only evaluating corporate experience in phase 2 and disqualifying offerors on this basis.

GAO dismissed the protest as legally insufficient. First, GAO found SOFITC3's argument about widespread evaluation errors was purely speculative and unsupported. Second, GAO determined SOFITC3 misinterpreted the solicitation's phased evaluation process–the "advisory down-select" after phase 2 was only a recommendation, not a mandatory elimination of vendors.

The decision reinforces that protesters must provide concrete evidence rather than conjecture when challenging corrective action scope, and clarifies that agencies have broad discretion in determining the extent of corrective action needed to remedy procurement errors.

Digest

Protest challenging the scope of the agency's corrective action taken in response to previous post-award protests is dismissed as legally insufficient where the protester's allegations are based on impermissible speculation or a facially unreasonable interpretation of the solicitation's evaluation scheme.