The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has ruled against Alabama-based Quantum Research International Inc., denying its protest of a $261 million Army task order awarded to rival PeopleTec Inc., despite accusations of misrepresentation tied to a prior defense contract.
In a June 17 decision released Tuesday, the GAO concluded that even if PeopleTec mischaracterized its role in a previous joint venture contract with Quantum—dubbed the MATCH SEC project—the issue did not materially affect the Army’s evaluation of PeopleTec’s past performance.
“We need not – and do not – wade into the morass of questions of semantics, corporate governance, and competing accounts,” GAO wrote. “The alleged misrepresentation did not have a significant impact on the evaluation.”
The Core of the Controversy
Quantum contended that PeopleTec overstated its performance on the Mission Planning, Advanced Decision Support Data Analytics Tools, and Cyber Hardening-Secure Environment Contract—a prior joint venture between the two Huntsville-based companies.
But the GAO found that other past performance references provided by PeopleTec carried sufficient weight, even excluding the disputed project. The Army determined PeopleTec’s proposal merited a “somewhat relevant” rating, which remained unchanged regardless of the MATCH SEC contract’s inclusion.
