BNUMBER:  B-275259
DATE:  November 4, 1996
TITLE:  IBP, Inc.

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Matter of:IBP, Inc.

File:     B-275259

Date:November 4, 1996

Ronald K. Henry, Esq., Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler, LLP, 
for the protester.
Linda S. Lebowitz, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, 
participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Under Bid Protest Regulations, section 21.2(a)(3), 61 Fed. Reg. 39039, 
39043 (1996) (to be codified at 4 C.F.R.  sec.  21.2(a)(3)), a protest to 
the General Accounting Office (GAO) will not be considered if it was 
preceded by an initial agency-level protest that was not timely filed 
within the 10-day period for filing provided by GAO's regulations 
notwithstanding interim agency-level protest procedures that allow a 
14-day period.

DECISION

IBP, Inc. protests the award of a contract to Monfort, Inc. under 
request for proposals No. DECA02-96-R-0028, issued by the Defense 
Commissary Agency for different grades of frozen ground beef for 
Department of Defense installations in Germany and the United Kingdom.

We dismiss the protest as untimely.

The protester was notified of the award on August 2, 1996, and at that 
time the protester requested a debriefing.  The agency conducted a 
debriefing, by telephone, on August 14.  On August 15, the agency 
provided the protester with additional documents regarding the award 
decision, as requested by the protester during the debriefing.  Based 
on the information provided at the debriefing and contained in the 
documents released by the agency, the protester filed an agency-level 
protest on August 27.  On October 16, the agency denied the 
protester's agency-level protest.  On October 25, the protester filed 
this protest with our Office.

As noted by the protester in its protest, this protest is subject to 
the timeliness rules set forth in our Bid Protest Regulations as 
amended by the notice published in the Federal Register on July 26, 
1996 (applicable to protests filed on or after August 8, 1996), 61 
Fed. Reg. 39039-39047 (to be codified at 4 C.F.R. Part 21).  Under 
section 21.2(a)(2), 61 Fed. Reg. 39043 (to be codified at 4 C.F.R.  sec.  
21.2(a)(2)), our Office will not consider a protest challenging a 
procurement conducted on the basis of competitive proposals where a 
debriefing is requested and, when requested, is required, if the 
protest is filed before the debriefing date offered to the protester 
(even if the protest basis was known before the debriefing); the 
protest instead should be filed not later than 10 days after the date 
on which the debriefing was held.  The Real Estate Center, B-274081, 
Aug. 20, 1996, 96-2 CPD  para.  74.  Further, our timeliness rules provide 
that we will consider a matter initially protested to the agency only 
if the initial protest to the agency was filed within the time limits 
for filing a protest with our Office, unless the contracting agency 
imposes a more stringent time for filing, in which case the agency's 
time for filing will control.  Section 21.2(a)(3), 61 Fed. Reg. supra 
(to be codified at 4 C.F.R.  sec.  21.3(a)(3)); see Tandy Constr., Inc., 
B-238619, Feb. 22, 1990, 90-1 CPD  para.  206.

Viewing the circumstances of this case in a light most favorable to 
the protester, we will consider that the debriefing was held on August 
15.  For the agency-level protest to have been timely filed for 
purposes of our Regulations, it had to be filed by August 26, that is, 
10 days after the date on which the debriefing was held.  (Since the 
tenth day after the debriefing fell on Sunday, August 25, the 
protester had until Monday, August 26 to file its agency-level 
protest.  See section 21.0(e), 
61 Fed. Reg. 39042 (to be codified at 4 C.F.R.  sec.  21.0(e)).  
Accordingly, since the agency-level protest was filed on August 27, 
more than 10 days after the date on which the debriefing was held, we 
will not consider the subsequent protest filed with our Office.  

We note that there is an inconsistency between our Bid Protest 
Regulations and the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).  Under 
interim agency-level protest procedures, effective July 26, 1996, 
protesters are afforded 14 days after the basis of protest is known or 
should have been known, whichever is earlier, to file an agency-level 
protest.  FAR  sec.  33.103(e) (FAC 90-41).  Thus, while a protester may be 
timely from an agency's perspective if it files its agency-level 
protest within 14 days after the date on which the debriefing was 
held, as the protester did in this case, under our timeliness rules, 
if the protest was filed with the agency more than 10 days after this 
date, any subsequent protest to GAO will not be considered pursuant to 
section 21.2(a)(3).  We have brought this matter to the attention of 
the civilian and defense agency acquisition regulatory councils and 
have recommended that the FAR be revised to provide a 10-day 
timeliness rule for agency-level protests to prevent potential 
misunderstandings among protesters.

The protest is dismissed.

Comptroller General
of the United States