Decision Released: USDA Reimbursement of Protest Costs Incurred denial

File No.  B-422114.3

Digest

Where solicitation’s provisions regarding citizenship of proposed personnel contained some ambiguity, and the agency took corrective action following a conference call in which our Office expressed concern about the awardee’s compliance with the citizenship provisions, we reject protester’s request that we recommend reimbursement of protest costs on the basis that the protest grounds were not clearly meritorious.

Discussion

VSolvit asserts that all of its protest allegations were clearly meritorious and maintains that the agency unduly delayed taking corrective action. Request for Recommendation at 6-9.

Under the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 (CICA), our Office is authorized to recommend reimbursement of protest costs where we find that an agency’s actions violated a procurement statute or regulation. 31 U.S.C. § 3554(c)(1). Our Bid Protest Regulations further provide that we may similarly recommend reimbursement of protest costs where the contracting agency takes corrective action in response to a protest. 4 C.F.R. § 21.8(e). Nonetheless, our Regulations do not contemplate a recommendation for reimbursement of protest costs in every case where an agency takes corrective action, but rather only where an agency unduly delays taking corrective action in the face of a clearly meritorious protest …

Decision

VSolvit, LLC, of Ventura, California, requests that we recommend reimbursement of the costs VSolvit incurred in filing and pursuing its protests challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) issuance of a task order to Sohum Systems, LLC, pursuant to task order request for proposals (TORP) No. 123144-23-R-0009 for information technology support services. We dismissed VSolvit’s protests following the agency’s statement that it would recompete phase II of the procurement. VSolvit asserts that its protests were clearly meritorious, and that the agency unduly delayed taking corrective action.

We deny the request.

Read the decision here.

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