Court Upholds $947M NGA CLOVER Awards Following Re-Evaluation

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims denied protests filed by Tellus Strategies, LLC and Assertive Professionals, LLC challenging the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s CLOVER multiple-award IDIQ procurement. The decision allows NGA to proceed with awards to Compass, Exacta Solutions, Innovate Now, Logic Gate, and ProCleared for advisory and assistance support services supporting the CLOVER program.

CLOVER is a multiple-award IDIQ supporting NGA acquisition, financial management, and strategic business management requirements. The procurement uses a self-scoring methodology under which offerors claimed points that NGA later verified through evaluation of relevant experience, past performance, and risk assessment submissions. The contract replaces NGA’s incumbent EMERALD program and supports future task orders across acquisition management, financial management, and strategic business management functions.

Tellus challenged NGA’s evaluation of its proposal under the Relevant Experience, Past Performance, and Risk Assessment factors and argued that the agency failed to conduct a meaningful re-evaluation following earlier protest activity. The court rejected those arguments, finding NGA reasonably exercised the discretion provided by the solicitation and adequately supported its conclusions. The court also denied Tellus’s effort to supplement the record with additional declarations and documents related to prior contract performance assessments.

Assertive Professionals similarly challenged NGA’s evaluation of its Past Performance, Relevant Experience, and Risk Assessment submissions. The court found NGA reasonably applied the solicitation’s evaluation criteria and properly exercised its discretion when assigning ratings and verifying self-scored points. The court also rejected allegations of disparate treatment among offerors.

A notable aspect of the decision is the court’s discussion of NGA’s self-scoring evaluation approach. The court repeatedly rejected arguments that adjectival ratings such as “Very Relevant,” “Relevant,” “Exceptional,” and “Very Good” should be determined through mathematical calculations based on the number of capabilities or evaluation elements addressed. Instead, the court concluded that the solicitation gave NGA evaluators discretion to make qualitative judgments when assigning ratings.

After reviewing all protest grounds, the court denied both protesters’ motions for judgment on the administrative record and granted the government’s and awardees’ cross-motions. Because neither protester demonstrated a procurement error or prejudice, the court also denied requests for injunctive relief and allowed NGA’s CLOVER awards to stand.

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Solicitation Number: HM0476-21-R-0023.