The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has delivered a decisive blow to Amentum Parsons Logistics Services LLC, refusing to reopen the door on its protest over a $306.8 million Army contract award. The ruling, issued Sept. 18 and released Thursday, shuts down the Virginia-based joint venture’s bid to overturn the dismissal of its case, stating that its arguments came too late.
The company, which includes an incumbent contractor overseeing Army prepositioned stock support sites across Europe, had tried to challenge the award to Texas-based KBR Services LLC. But GAO found that Amentum Parsons failed to counter KBR’s contention that it wasn’t even an “interested party” in the protest — a fatal oversight.
The Protest That Went Nowhere
APLS originally protested the Army’s evaluation of technical, past performance, and pricing factors, as well as the service branch’s best-value trade-off analysis. While it claimed status as an interested party under the LOGCAP V program, KBR fired back, asserting that APLS should have been disqualified outright for not complying with the solicitation’s small business participation requirement.
GAO agreed. In its October decision, it concluded APLS would not have been eligible for award even if its protest had succeeded. “Although part of APLS’s proposal represented it would comply,” GAO wrote, “its technical/management and cost/price proposals did not include the required information to support those representations.”
