In a closely watched procurement dispute, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has sided with the Navy, rejecting a protest over a $195 million maintenance contract at a Nevada training facility and reinforcing the service’s discretion in weighing past performance.
The decision, issued Jan. 22 and made public Thursday, marks the latest chapter in the Navy $195M GAO Contract suit, a challenge brought by GKG Contractors LLC after losing out to Chugach Logistics and Facility Services JV LLC.
GAO Defers to Navy’s Evaluation
At the heart of the dispute was whether the Navy improperly overlooked allegedly negative past performance by Chugach when evaluating proposals.
The GAO concluded it did not.
“The evaluation of past performance, by its very nature, is subjective, and we will not substitute our judgment for reasonably based evaluation ratings,” the watchdog wrote. “An offeror’s disagreement with an agency’s evaluation judgments regarding past performance, by itself, does not demonstrate that such judgments are unreasonable.”
In other words, the GAO signaled that second-guessing an agency’s reasoned judgment is not its role — even when millions of taxpayer dollars hang in the balance.
