DIGEST
Protest to GAO of the exclusion of the protester’s proposal from the competitive range is untimely filed where the matter was initially protested to the contracting agency but was not filed with the agency within 10 days of the date that the protester learned the basis of its protest; the timeliness exception in GAO’s Bid Protest Regulations for filing a protest with GAO after receipt of a required debriefing does not apply to agency-level protests.
DECISION
NikSoft Systems Corporation, of Reston, Virginia, protests the exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range under solicitation No. 030ADV22R0079, which was issued by the Library of Congress (LOC) to establish multiple indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts for Agile system development and support services. The protester argues that the agency unreasonably evaluated its proposal, resulting in the improper exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range. NikSoft submitted its protest to our Office after having received a decision from LOC that its pre-award debriefing response constituted an agency-level protest, which the agency denied as untimely filed because it was filed more than 10 days after the protester was notified of its exclusion from the competitive range. We dismiss the protest. Under our Bid Protest Regulations, a matter initially filed with a contracting activity will be considered timely by our Office only if the agency protest was filed within the time limits provided by our regulations, unless the contracting agency imposes a more Page 2 B-421801 stringent time for filing, in which case the agency’s time for filing will control. 4 C.F.R. § 21.2(a)(3). Where, as here, the protester is challenging its exclusion from the competitive range, the protester was required to file its agency-level protest within 10 days of when it knew or should have known it was excluded from the competition…
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