BNUMBER:  B-275050.2
DATE:  December 4, 1996
TITLE:  Reliable Trash Service, Inc.--Entitlement to Costs

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Matter of:Reliable Trash Service, Inc.--Entitlement to Costs

File:     B-275050.2

Date:December 4, 1996

David K. Monroe, Esq., Galland, Kharasch, Morse & Garfinkle, P.C., for 
the protester.
Jerold D. Cohen, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, 
participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Provision in General Accounting Office's (GAO) Bid Protest Regulations 
for recommending that an agency pay protest costs if the agency took 
corrective action in response to a protest does not envision such 
recommendation where shortly after the protest filing the agency took 
corrective action on some issues but then proceeded to defend its 
decisions on others, and the protest on those remaining issues is 
pending.  Moreover, even if there were some way to assign costs to the 
protester's pursuit of the matters on which corrective action was 
taken, GAO's concern with respect to entitlement claims is whether the 
contracting agency reacted quickly in response to a protest filing to 
review its actions and correct an impropriety, and in this case the 
action was taken promptly, early in the protest process.

DECISION

Reliable Trash Service, Inc. requests that our Office recommend the 
payment of Reliable's costs of filing and pursuing its protest of the 
terms of solicitation 
No. N00187-96-B-8825, issued by the Department of the Navy. 

We deny the request.

Reliable filed its protest in our Office on October 10, 1996.  
Following receipt of the protest and before submitting its report, the 
Navy addressed some of the issues raised to Reliable's satisfaction, 
and on November 1 amended the solicitation  taking corrective action 
on those matters.  The Navy then submitted a report addressing the 
remaining protest issues.  (The protest is pending in our Office.)  
Reliable claims entitlement to protest costs "because it was required 
to file a protest to cure infirmities in the solicitation which were 
on their face obvious and easily correctable."  

Our Bid Protest Regulations,  sec.  21.8(e), 61 Fed. Reg. 39039, 39046 
(1996) (to be codified at 4 C.F.R.  sec.  21.8(e)), provide that we may 
recommend that an agency pay protest costs, including attorneys' fees, 
where the agency decides to take corrective action in response to a 
protest.  A decision whether to award costs in a particular case is 
based primarily on where in the protest process the decision to take 
corrective action was made and communicated.  Pulse Electronics, 
Inc.--Request for Declaration of Entitlement to Costs, B-243625.3, 
Aug. 30, 1991, 91-2 CPD  para.  222.  Our Regulations do not envision the 
payment of costs in every circumstance; rather, the provision was 
adopted to encourage agencies to take corrective action in a 
reasonably prompt fashion.  Thus, we will recommend payment of protest 
costs only where the agency unduly delayed taking corrective action in 
the face of a clearly meritorious protest.  Diez Management Sys., 
Inc.--Entitlement to Costs, B-250831.3, Apr. 13, 1993, 93-1 CPD  para.  313.  

Here, the Navy took corrective action on some of the protest issues 
shortly after Reliable's filing, and prior to the date on which the 
agency's report in response to the protest was due, and the Navy then 
proceeded to defend its determinations on the remaining issues through 
its report.  The provision in our Regulations cited above does not 
envision a recommendation for costs in such circumstance.  Moreover, 
even if there were some way to assign protest costs only to Reliable's 
pursuit of the resolved issues, corrective action taken early in the 
protest process 
is precisely the kind of prompt reaction to a protest that our 
Regulations are designed to encourage.  El Paso Analytics, 
Inc.--Entitlement to Costs, B-274315.2, Oct. 18, 1996, 96-2 CPD  para.  148; 
Special Sys. Servs., Inc.--Entitlement to Costs, 
B-252210.2, June 8, 1993, 93-1 CPD  para.  445. 

Reliable's request is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States