TITLE:  Consultants Ltd., B-286688.2, May 16, 2001
BNUMBER:  B-286688.2
DATE:  May 16, 2001
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Consultants Ltd., B-286688.2, May 16, 2001

Decision

Matter of: Consultants Ltd.

File: B-286688.2

Date: May 16, 2001

Heath Carroll, Esq., for the protester.

Henry P. Wall, Esq., Bruner, Powell, Robbins, Wall & Mullins, for Jackson
Enterprises, an intervenor.

Lt. Col. Richard B. O'Keeffe, Jr., and Joseph M. Zima, Esq., Department of
the Army, for the agency.

Jennifer D. Westfall-McGrail, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of
the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Where a bidder agrees to hold its bid open for the minimum bid acceptance
period required by the solicitation and complies with each agency request
for an extension of its bid acceptance period, the bidder has obtained no
advantage over the other bidders and the integrity of the bidding system is
not compromised if the bidder is subsequently permitted to revive an expired
bid.

DECISION

Consultants Ltd. protests the Department of the Army's decision to terminate
its contract and make award to Jackson Enterprises under invitation for bids
(IFB)
No. DAKF40-00-B-0008, for the cleaning of grit chambers, holding tanks, and
oil/water separators/interceptors at various locations throughout Fort Bragg
and Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina. The protester contends that
Jackson's bid should be rejected because Jackson allowed its bid acceptance
period to expire.

We deny the protest.

The IFB, which was issued on May 15, 2000, contemplated the award of a
requirements contract for a 12-month base period and four 12-month option
periods. The solicitation incorporated by reference Federal Acquisition
Regulation (FAR)

sect. 52.212-1 (Instructions to Offerors--Commercial Items), which set the
period for bid acceptance as follows:

(c) Period for acceptance of offers. The offeror agrees to hold the prices
in its offer firm for 30 calendar days from the date specified

for receipt of offers, unless another time period is specified in an
addendum to the solicitation.

RFP at 000071.

The IFB was amended four times after issuance. Amendment Nos. 0001 and 0002
answered questions posed by various prospective bidders and set dates for
site visits, while amendment No. 0003 extended the bid opening date
indefinitely. Amendment No. 0004 set the bid opening date as July 7 and
answered additional bidder questions.

Six bids were received and opened on July 7. Gilesair was the low bidder;
Jackson Enterprises was second low; and Consultants was third low. By letter
dated July 18, Jackson, which had failed to acknowledge amendment Nos. 0003
and 0004 in its bid, acknowledged these amendments and "extend[ed] [its]
submitted bid 90 days or until the Contract is awarded."

Because preaward processing took longer than expected, the agency was unable
to make award during the 30-day acceptance period provided for in the
solicitation and sought extensions of their acceptance periods from the
bidders. After extending its bid acceptance period several times, Gilesair,
whose acceptance period was now due to expire on September 30, failed to
comply in a timely manner with an agency request for a further extension;
accordingly, the contracting officer determined that Gilesair's bid had
expired as of September 30 and rejected it. [1] The contracting officer then
determined that Jackson's bid was nonresponsive because Jackson had failed
to acknowledge amendment No. 0004. On October 17, the contracting officer
awarded a contract to Consultants as the responsible firm submitting the
lowest responsive bid.

Jackson protested the rejection of its bid to our Office, arguing that the
agency should have waived its failure to acknowledge amendment No. 0004
because the amendment was not material. By decision dated February 5, 2001,
we sustained Jackson's protest and recommended that if the agency determined
Jackson to be otherwise eligible for award, it terminate the award to
Consultants and make award to Jackson.

By letter to the contracting officer dated February 6, as supplemented by a
letter dated February 21, Consultants protested the prospective termination
of its contract and award to Jackson. On March 12, having failed to receive
a response to its agency-level protest, Consultants protested to our Office.

Consultants argues that Jackson's bid should be rejected because Jackson,
like Gilesair, allowed its bid acceptance period to expire. In this regard,
after on July 18 extending its bid for "90 days or until the Contract is
awarded", and on September 26 confirming, in response to an agency request,
that its bid would remain open until October 16, Jackson did not further
extend its bid acceptance period until
February 8, 2001, when the contracting officer, who had just received our
Office's decision sustaining Jackson's protest, requested that it do so. [2]

Where a bidder offers a bid acceptance period shorter than that requested in
the solicitation, the bidder cannot be permitted to revive its bid by
extending its acceptance period, since such an extension would compromise
the competitive bidding system by prejudicing the other bidders who assumed
a greater risk of price or market fluctuation by offering the requested
acceptance period. W. A. Strom Contracting, Inc.; Seubert Excavators, Inc.,
B-216115, B-216115.2, Dec. 26, 1984, 84-2 CPD para. 705 at 2-3. Where, however,
a bidder agrees to hold its bid open for the minimum bid acceptance period
required by the solicitation and complies with each agency request for an
extension of its bid acceptance period, the bidder has obtained no advantage
over the other bidders and the integrity of the bidding system is not
compromised if the bidder is subsequently permitted to revive an expired
bid. See Carnes Constr., Inc., B-241778, Feb. 26, 1991, 91-1 CPD para. 215 at 3.

Here, Jackson agreed to hold its bid open for the 30-day period originally
requested by the agency. It then extended its bid acceptance period without
the agency's having requested it, and confirmed, when requested by the
agency to do so, that its bid would remain open until October 16. Thus, the
record in no way suggests that Jackson endeavored to obtain an advantage
over other bidders by offering less than the requested bid acceptance
period. Furthermore, Jackson was not required to extend its bid acceptance
period through the pendency of its protest because a party's active
participation in a bid protest, without a formal extension of its bid
acceptance period, tolls that period until the protest is resolved. See S.
J. Groves & Sons Co., B-207172, Nov. 9, 1982, 82-2 CPD para. 423 at 2.

The protester contends that it would compromise the integrity of the
competitive bidding process to allow Jackson to revive its expired bid given
that the low bidder, Gilesair, was not allowed to revive its expired bid. We
disagree. The circumstances surrounding the two bidders' extensions of their
bid acceptance periods differ significantly. While Jackson fully complied
with agency requests for extension of its bid acceptance period, Gilesair on
several occasions extended its bid for less than the requested number of
days, [3] thereby potentially obtaining an unfair advantage over bidders
(such as Consultants itself) that extended for the requested number of days.
Moreover, Gilesair allowed its bid acceptance period to expire in the face
of a request for extension from the agency, whereas Jackson had received no
request for a further extension at the time its acceptance period expired.

The protester also argued in its initial protest that Jackson's bid should
be rejected because Jackson falsely represented in its bid (1) that it had
not participated in a previous contract or subcontract subject to the Equal
Opportunity clause of the solicitation, and (2) that it had not previously
had contracts subject to the written affirmative action program requirements
of the rules and regulations of the Secretary of Labor. [4] The agency
responded to these allegations in its report, maintaining that any errors or
omissions in Jackson's response to the above clauses were not material and
thus did not render its bid nonresponsive. In commenting on the agency
report, the protester has neither taken issue with nor attempted to rebut
the agency argument; accordingly, we consider it to have abandoned this
basis of protest.
O. Ames Co., B-283943, Jan. 27, 2000, 2000 CPD para. 20 at 7.

The protest is denied.

Anthony H. Gamboa

General Counsel

Notes

1. On October 31, Gilesair filed an agency-level protest objecting to the
rejection of its bid. The contracting officer denied the protest on November
28. Gilesair did not pursue the matter in another forum.

2. On February 8, 2001 Jackson responded to the contracting officer's
request for an extension of its bid through February 28. On February 25, in
response to a further request by the agency, Jackson extended its bid
acceptance period through April 1, and on March 30, it again extended its
bid "until rulings have been made on the current protest and until award of
contract is made."

3. For example, on August 3, the agency asked Gilesair to extend its bid
acceptance period for 60 days. On August 4, Gilesair responded with an
extension of 26 days.

4. These are among the representations that bidders responding to
solicitations for commercial items are required to complete pursuant to FAR
sect. 52.212-3.