Decision Released: Army programmatic support services protest dismissal

File No.  B-421743.2

Digest

Request for recommendation that agency reimburse protester’s costs associated with filing and pursuing its bid protest is dismissed as untimely where the request was submitted to the agency, and not GAO, more than seven weeks after GAO dismissed the protest following the agency’s corrective action.

Discussion

NextStep requests that our Office recommend that the Army reimburse the requester’s costs associated with filing and pursing its bid protest after our Office dismissed its protest following notice of the Army’s corrective action. Req. for Costs.

The Army responds that NextStep’s October 27 request is untimely because its initial request for reimbursement was filed directly with the Army–and not GAO, and, in any event, was not filed with GAO within 15 days after the date the protester learned that GAO had closed the protest. Resp. to Req. for Costs at 2, 6-8. The Army asserts that to meet GAO’s timeliness rules for requesting a recommendation for reimbursement under 4 C.F.R. § 21.8(e), NextStep should have submitted its request within 15 days directly to GAO (and not the Army) which, according to the agency, would have been by September 20, 2023; any request submitted to GAO after that date is untimely and should be dismissed. Id. at 6-8. In the alternative, the Army asserts that NextStep’s submission of its claimed costs directly to the Army is premature. Id. at 11. The agency contends that GAO’s rules on requests for reimbursement contemplate a recommendation from GAO before the invocation of any procedures under 4 C.F.R. § 21.8(f) designed to resolve disagreement between the parties about the reasonable amount of costs incurred …

Decision

NextStep Technology, Inc., a small business of Springfield, Virginia, requests that our Office recommend the firm be reimbursed the reasonable costs of filing and pursuing its protest. NextStep challenged the issuance of a task order to Gemini Industries, Inc., of Burlington, Massachusetts, under task order request for proposals (RFP) No. W15QKN-23-R-0STC, issued by the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Materiel Command, for programmatic support services.

We dismiss the request as untimely.

Read the decision here.

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