GAO decisions/Denied/Decided 19 Jan 2024
Guidehouse Inc.
Late electronic submission; government control exception
The procurement
NGA issued an RFQ under FAR subpart 8.4 (Federal Supply Schedule) for audit management and support services, for a fixed-price task order with a 12-month base and four 12-month options, awarded on a best-value tradeoff. Final quotation revisions were due by email to the contract specialist at 8:00 a.m. on June 21, 2023. Kearney & Co., P.C. won at $71,110,211.88.
The protest
Guidehouse emailed its final quotation revision the night before the deadline. The contract specialist received its emails carrying volumes I, II, V and VI, but not the two emails sent at 11:03 and 11:06 p.m. carrying volume IV, the revised small business participation plan. Guidehouse produced server records showing the emails went out and reached NGA's email security gateway. It argued the volume was timely, or at least covered by the FAR exception for submissions received at the government installation and under the government's control before the deadline.
The agency’s answer
NGA explained that incoming mail passes a two-step cybersecurity check, first its email security gateway and then an advanced malware-defense appliance, and the volume IV emails never made it past that screening to its email server or the contract specialist's inbox. Without the revised plan, Guidehouse's quotation remained unacceptable and ineligible for award.
What decided it
The vendor has to get the quote to the designated inbox on time, and the government control exception doesn't cover email.
GAO denied the protest. A vendor is responsible for delivering its quotation to the proper place at the proper time, and delivery to NGA's email security gateway was not delivery to the email address the RFQ designated. Following Sea Box, Inc., B-291056, GAO held that the government control exception in FAR 52.212-1(f)(2)(i)(B) does not apply to electronically submitted quotations, since reading it that way would make paragraph (f)(2)(i)(A) a nullity. With its quotation properly ineligible, Guidehouse was not an interested party to challenge the rest of the evaluation.
“it is a vendor's responsibility to deliver its quotation to the proper place at the proper time, and the protester has the burden to show that it timely delivered its quotation to the agency at the specified address.”
GAO, B-422115.2
For the file: For emailed submissions, sent is not received. Vendors should submit well ahead of the deadline and get confirmation of every volume; contracting officers should document exactly what reached the designated inbox, because the government control exception will not rescue an email stopped by agency screening.
Authorities: FAR 52.212-1(f)(2)(i); FAR subpart 8.4. Read the decision at GAO →
Facts are condensed from the published decision and the quote is verbatim; the takeaway is ours. Where GAO decided several grounds, only this one is described.
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