Chaedrol GAO Protest Log 20241008: Hal Technology, LLC (B-422686)

You should not care.

Category: Evaluation procedures

Date: October 2, 2024

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-422686

In this case, Hal Technology, LLC (HalTech) protested the Navy’s award of a government contract to D-2 Incorporated for particle counters, asserting that the agency's evaluation of its proposal was flawed. HalTech, a small business based in Fontana, California, challenged the Navy's decision under RFP #N68335-22-R-0216, maintaining that the evaluation process did not properly assess its proposal's strengths and violated established criteria. Key Issues included:

1. Technical Evaluation: HalTech's proposal was rated acceptable with moderate risk, primarily due to its failure to adequately address the degassing requirement. GAO upheld the agency’s assessment, stating that HalTech did not provide a clear approach to mitigate air bubbles that could affect measurements. 2. Abandonment of Arguments: HalTech raised additional challenges concerning the evaluation of its key personnel and the overall rating of its proposal, but these were dismissed by GAO as they were either not meaningfully addressed in HalTech's comments or raised too late.

The protest was denied due to the GAO's finding that the agency's evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation criteria.

Digest

1. Protest challenging the agency’s evaluation under the technical factor is denied where the protester fails to demonstrate that the agency’s evaluation was unreasonable.

2. Remaining protest grounds are dismissed where the protester abandoned its initial arguments and instead raised new untimely arguments.