BNUMBER:  B-274140.2
DATE:  December 26, 1996
TITLE:  The Cowperwood Company

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Matter of:The Cowperwood Company

File:     B-274140.2

Date:December 26, 1996

Edward V. Gregorowicz, Jr., Esq., for the protester.
David H. Peirez, Esq., Reisman, Peirez, Reisman & Calica, and Robert 
G. Fryling, Esq., Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley, for Continental 
Terminals, Inc., an intervenor.
Barry D. Segal, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency.
Mary G. Curcio, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General 
Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

1.  Agency properly may reopen discussions and request an additional 
round of best and final offers from all competitive range offerors in 
order to permit offeror an opportunity to correct proposal deficiency 
and possibly obtain lower price; agency reasonably determined that 
reopening in such circumstances is in government's interest.

2.  Where agency provided protester with evaluation information during 
debriefing held before making award to another offeror, but 
subsequently determined that it was necessary to reopen the 
competition, agency properly equalized the protester's potential 
competitive advantage by disclosing similar information to the other 
offerors in the competition.  

DECISION

The Cowperwood Company protests the decision of the General Services 
Administration (GSA) to reopen discussions and request additional 
rounds of best and final offers (BAFO) under solicitation for offers 
(SFO) No. MNY95-387, issued by GSA for the construction and lease of 
office space.

We deny the protest.  

GSA received and evaluated several initial proposals.  Following 
discussions, the agency advised the competitive range offerors that it 
would not evaluate the prices proposed for the option period.  Because 
the BAFO option prices were widely divergent, however--GSA believed 
that offerors, knowing that the option prices would not be evaluated, 
had no incentive to offer competitive prices--GSA decided to amend the 
solicitation to provide for evaluation of option prices.  Following 
receipt and evaluation of the second BAFOs, the agency selected 
Continental Terminals, Inc. for award.  

Before the award was final, GSA held a debriefing with Cowperwood at 
which GSA revealed information concerning the proposal evaluation 
areas in which Continental had scored higher than Cowperwood, 
Cowperwood's scores and weaknesses in the different evaluation areas, 
and Continental's price.  Also before the award was finalized, GSA 
received several agency-level protests.  In the course of reviewing 
these protests, GSA determined that Continental's proposal was 
technically unacceptable because the termination rights it granted the 
government did not comply with the requirements of the solicitation.  
GSA thus decided to reopen discussions and request a third round of 
BAFOs to give Continental the opportunity to correct this deficiency.  
In order to eliminate any unfair advantage Cowperwood may have gained 
by virtue of the debriefing information it received, before reopening 
the agency revealed similar information to the other competitive range 
offerors.

Cowperwood maintains that the competition should not be reopened.  
Rather, since Continental's first and second BAFOs were technically 
unacceptable, and Cowperwood's own first and second BAFOs were the 
lowest-priced, technically acceptable offers received, Cowperwood 
believes the appropriate course of action would be to make award to 
Cowperwood.  This is particularly the case, Cowperwood asserts, in 
light of the information disclosure.
 
This argument is without merit; while GSA was not required to reopen 
the competition after first and second BAFOs, neither was it precluded 
from doing so.  A contracting agency properly may reopen discussions 
following receipt of BAFOs where it determines that doing so is in the 
government's best interest.  Federal Acquisition Regulation  sec.  
15.611(c) (FAC 90-31); NDI Eng'g Co., Inc., 66 Comp.   Gen. 198 
(1987), 87-1 CPD  para.  37; Management Sys. Applications, Inc., B-259628;          
B-259628.2, Apr. 13, 1995, 95-1 CPD  para.  216.  There is nothing improper 
in an agency's reopening a competition and requesting additional BAFOs 
in order to permit the revision of a proposal it has determined to be 
otherwise strong.  Research Analysis and Management Corp., B-218567.2, 
Nov. 5, 1985, 85-2 CPD  para.  524.  This is precisely what GSA did--it 
determined that reopening discussions and requesting third  BAFOs--to 
permit Continental to revise its proposal--was in the government's 
interest.  There simply was no requirement that the agency instead 
reject Continental's proposal and make award based on another 
offeror's first or second BAFO.

The fact that GSA disclosed pricing and technical information to the 
offerors before it requested third BAFOs does not change our 
conclusion.  While it of course would have been preferable had the 
original disclosure not occurred, the only question is whether the 
agency essentially should be precluded from considering Continental's 
proposal for award--instead of permitting correction of the 
deficiency--because of the disclosure.  There is no basis for such a 
conclusion; the disclosure of information to equalize competition is 
an appropriate alternative to eliminating an offeror from a 
competition due to a prior disclosure of information that could result 
in an unfair competitive advantage.  KPMG Peat Marwick, 73 Comp. Gen. 
15 (1993), 93-2 CPD  para.  272.  This approach is particularly appropriate 
here in light of the facts that (1) Continental had nothing to do with 
the original disclosure and gained no benefit from it; (2) Cowperwood 
actually was a primary beneficiary of the disclosure, since it will 
have an opportunity to submit a BAFO based on the information it 
learned about Continental's highest-rated proposal; and (3) it will 
enable the agency to consider all proposals for this high-cost project 
and to make award based on the one most advantageous to the 
government.

Cowperwood also challenges the evaluation of its BAFOs.  Since the 
award decision will be based on the evaluation of the new BAFOs, this 
basis of protest is academic.  
The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States