Enviremedial Services, Inc.

The procurement

Preventive maintenance, repair and facilities services at 18 sites in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, set aside for small business, under a fixed-price IDIQ contract (12-month base plus four 12-month options). Understanding of the work and past performance, combined, were about equal to price. BryMak & Associates, Inc. won at $16,754,056; Enviremedial (ESI) proposed $17,110,333.

The protest

The RFP required past performance references to have been awarded to the offeror, or its team member, as a prime contractor. ESI argued the Corps credited BryMak with a Fort Campbell contract held by BryMak Eagle Pro LLC, a separate company the proposal never tied to BryMak, and with two contracts of its teaming partner, CB Facility Solutions (CBFS), that the evaluation described as including work by BryMak.

The agency’s answer

The Corps said BryMak is a member of a joint venture called BryMak Eagle Pro LLC, so the Fort Campbell contract counted. On the CBFS contracts, it conceded BryMak did not work on them but said the evaluation's references to BryMak were typographical errors and it meant to credit CBFS. It added that three of BryMak's references alone would have earned it a top past performance rating, so the award would not change.

What decided it

BryMak got credit for work it didn't perform, and the post-protest typo and joint venture accounts didn't fit the record.

GAO found the Corps credited BryMak with past performance on projects BryMak did not work on, and gave little weight to the post-protest typo and joint venture explanations because they conflicted with the contemporaneous record. It also found the relevance of a CBFS joint venture project undocumented, and the best-value tradeoff flawed for relying on adjectival ratings. GAO dismissed ESI's unbalanced pricing argument and recommended reevaluation, a new source selection decision, and reimbursement of ESI's protest costs.