Addx Corporation (B-423633)

You should not care.

Category: Timeliness, solicitation ambiguity

Date: 23 July 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423633

Addx Corporation protested the Air Force’s issuance of a task order to KL3, LLC, under OASIS+ for IT architecture and engineering support at USSTRATCOM, arguing both evaluation errors and patently ambiguous solicitation terms. Addx’s protest primarily challenged the Air Force’s assessment of strengths in its quote and claimed that contradictory instructions regarding quote references misled offerors:

• FOPR issued under OASIS+ Small Business IDIQ on 25 February 2025.
• Task order awarded to KL3 on 16 May 2025; Addx received its written debriefing the same day.
• Addx sought clarification (debriefing questions) on 19 May; responses came on 21 May.
• Addx then filed an agency-level protest on 2 June, which the agency dismissed as untimely on 3 June.
• Addx next protested to GAO on 13 June.

The protester argued that its agency-level protest was timely because it was filed within ten days of Addx’s debriefing response. GAO emphasized that timeliness for agency-level protests is governed by FAR 33.103(e)—not GAO’s debriefing exception—requiring protest filing within ten-days-of-knowing the basis. Since Addx received its written debriefing with full evaluation details on 16 May, any protest was due by 26 May. Filing on 2 June rendered both the agency-level protest and subsequent GAO protest untimely.

Addx also alleged the solicitation included patent ambiguities between the evaluation instructions and a Q&A. GAO found any such ambiguity was obvious and should have been protested before quote submission, not after award. Addx did not timely seek clarification and thus its claim was dismissed as untimely under well-settled precedent.

The protest was dismissed. The dismissal was on clear procedural grounds, with the dual result that (1) late agency-level protests can preclude GAO review, and (2) patent solicitation ambiguities must be challenged preaward..

Digest

Protest to GAO is dismissed as untimely where the matter was untimely protested to the agency; the timeliness exception for filing a protest with GAO after receipt of a required debriefing does not apply to agency-level protests.Protest is dismissed as untimely where protester's challenge to award based on patently ambiguous term was filed after closing time for submission of proposals.