Protester Wins Proposal Costs When Solicitation Failed to Inform Offerors That Performance Required Access to Incumbent’s Proprietary System; COFC No. 17-1407C, ARxIUM Inc. v. United States and Innovation Associates Inc.

Successful protester’s application for bid preparation and proposal costs is granted, where the agency unfairly induced the protester to bid for a contract which it could not perform without the cooperation of the incumbent, who refused to issue licenses to a proprietary database containing agency data, and where offerors were not informed of this situation until after proposals were submitted and a protest was resolved.