Late means late for contract proposals.

AuthorLippman, Julia
PositionGovernment Contracting Insights

The Government Accountability Office on Feb. 27 reiterated its long standing rule that, when it comes to proposal submissions, "late" means "late."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

GAO addressed a protest filed by Tele-Consultants Inc. in connection with a request for proposals issued by Naval Sea Systems Command. TCI's protest argued that its proposal was improperly rejected by the agency for being submitted after the deadline.

Under the request for proposals, the Navy sought support services for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center through the issuance of a task order to a small business holder of the SeaPort-e multiple award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. The solicitation was issued Sept. 28, 2016 and proposals were to be submitted electronically through the SeaPort-e portal by Nov. 8 at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. The solicitation required compliance with the proposal submission instructions outlined in the SeaPort-e multiple award contract and the Sea-Port Vendor Portal User Guide.

In using the portal, contractors were required to designate an "authorized user" who could confirm the intent to engage in a legally binding action, such as submitting a proposal. When a contractor was ready to submit its proposal, its authorized user was required to use the "submit signed proposal" button. The portal would then generate a confirmation prompt that would require the user to confirm his or her intent to electronically sign and submit the proposal.

The portal was set up so that contractors could store their proposals on the contractor side of the portal prior to submitting their proposal.

The agency received three proposals by the deadline. TCI's proposal was not among them. Rather, TCI's proposal remained in its draft form on the contractor side of the portal because it had not engaged the submit button.

Based on a review of the server logs, the agency determined that TCI's representatives had unsuccessfully tried to engage the button 23 and 34 seconds after the proposal deadline. TCI reached out to the contracting officer by phone and email stating that the proposal button had not allowed it to submit its proposal but that "TCI's proposal was timely submitted and it was intended to be binding on TCI."

TCI received an email that evening from the SeaPort-e portal that noted that, "[a]n event for which you created a draft proposal has closed without you completing the final submission process. As a result, the draft will not be considered."...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT