ASR International Corporation (B-423594, B-423594.2)

You should not care.

Category: Technical evaluation, price evaluation

Date: 2 September 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423594

ASR International protested the Army Corps of Engineers' award of an IDIQ contract to Radise International for comprehensive quality assurance services supporting construction projects throughout Florida. The protester challenged its technical rating, the evaluation of the awardee's price, and the best value tradeoff decision.

ASR initially received an unacceptable technical rating due to a deficiency, the failure to provide an established procedures manual for executing construction quality assurance services. After discussions and submission of a revised proposal that eliminated the deficiency, ASR's rating improved to good. Radise received an outstanding rating with eighteen strengths, significantly exceeding ASR's proposal.

Technical evaluation dispute: The protester argued it should have received an outstanding rating based on receiving five strengths under one subfactor and meeting the minimum criteria for that rating. GAO rejected this interpretation, explaining that the solicitation set minimum requirements for each rating but did not mandate assignment of a rating simply because minimums were met. The protester's argument that the agency failed to document why it didn't assign a higher rating also failed, as agencies need only document the rationale for assigned ratings, not explain why other ratings weren't assigned.

Price evaluation challenge: ASR contended the awardee's mock task order price of $7.9 million was unreasonable because it exceeded the $5 million maximum task order value listed in the solicitation's Standard Form 1449. GAO found this argument without merit, noting that the maximum task order values in SF 1449 were not incorporated into the evaluation criteria and the mock order was merely an evaluation tool, not an order the agency intended to actually award.

Price analysis methodology: The protester also challenged alleged inconsistencies in the price evaluation, arguing certain line items exceeded 125 percent of the independent government estimate. However, the agency's methodology required line items to exceed both the IGE and the average proposed price of all vendors by 125 percent to be considered unreasonably high. The awardee's pricing did not meet this threshold.

The protest was denied. The Army reasonably evaluated proposals in accordance with solicitation terms and properly documented its best value tradeoff decision.

Digest

Protest challenging the agency's evaluation of proposals is denied where the evaluation was reasonable and in accordance with the terms of the solicitation.