GAO denies E-Logic's protest over SEWP VI elimination

One remaining protest involving NASA's SEWP VI IT contract has been resolved after the Government Accountability Office denied E-Logic’s challenge that the agency improperly evaluated its proposal.

E-Logic’s argument that NASA looked at too much of its proposal defied logic – pun intended – as the agency looked at a spreadsheet of product lines that E-Logic intended to sell through SEWP.

E-Logic listed HP Inc. as the original equipment manufacturer for 100 CLINs in technical area one and for 178 CLINs in technical area two. But in the description column of the spreadsheet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise was listed for three of the CLINs in technical area one and 168 CLINs in technical area two.

Once NASA separated the products from the two companies, E-Logic no longer met the minimum number of products for each. NASA then decided to remove E-Logic from the competition, according to the protest decision unsealed Monday.

In its protest, E-Logic argued that NASA should not have used the description column in the spreadsheet to override the OEM/service provider column.

But GAO disagreed and ruled in NASA’s favor because E-Logic could not point to anything in the solicitation that limited how the agency would look at the spreadsheet.

E-Logic also argued that because of the shared heritage of HP and HPE, NASA should have accepted the discrepancies in the spreadsheet. But GAO rejected this as well because those two companies are in fact separate and distinct publicly-traded entities. E-Logic could not provide any documentation that supported their argument.

The solicitation required bidders to provide a letter of authorization from their OEM, and E-Logic only submitted one from HP — not HPE. So once NASA separated the products from the two companies, E-Logic no longer met the minimum number of CLINs for each technical area.

No letter means no credit.

Separate to that, GAO also denied a SEWP VI protest by Strategic Communications LLC because one of its experience examples did not meet the $30 million minimum value. This left the company with only three qualifying examples instead of four.

Three other protests are still under review at GAO with Strategic Alliance Business Group, InnoVet Technologies and Insight Public Sector all awaiting decisions. Due dates for those protests are in June and July.

GAO is also still weighing a reconsideration filed by Z SofTech Solutions, whose protest was rejected as untimely.