Protester’s Claim that Agency Disclosed Propriety Information was Unsupported by Evidence; Trinity Global Consulting, LLC, GAO B-4127823

Protest alleging that the agency disclosed the protester’s proprietary information is dismissed for lack of evidence. The protester contended that a solicitation amendment, issued after receipt of proposals, contained proprietary staffing information lifted from the protester’s proposal. However, GAO believed this was just conjecture. There was no evidence that the agency had based the amendment on the protester’s staffing solution. Rather, the record showed that the amendment was the result of a directive from the Department of Labor.

The Army issued a solicitation seeking support services for the Army Reserve Command’s identification card office. The solicitation required offerors to propose a Verifying Officer as one of the personnel. The solicitation identified the federal employee labor category for the Verifying Officer position as General Clerk II.

Trinity Global Consulting submitted a proposal in response to the solicitation. As part of its proposal, Trinity recommended that the agency use the Personnel Assistant II category, instead of General Clerk II, for the Verifying Officer position.

Shortly after Trinity submitted its proposal, the Department of Labor notified the Army that the Verifying Officer position had been misclassified and that Personnel Assistant II was the correct labor category for the position. As a result of the DOL notification, the Army amended the solicitation, changing the labor category for the Verifying Officer to Personnel Assistant II. The amendment did not sit well with Trinity. It filed a protest, claiming that by issuing the amendment, the Army had disclosed Trinity’s propriety staffing and pricing solution to other offerors.

But GAO found that Trinity had failed to allege a cognizable protest basis. Mere allegations of improper agency conduct without any supporting evidence will not sustain a protest. While Trinity claimed that the Army had exposed its staffing solution, the company had produced no evidence to show that the Army had relied on Trinity’s proposal when it amended the solicitation. To the contrary, it appeared the Army had issued the solicitation based on guidance from DOL.

Trinity also alleged that the amendment was the result of incompetence and bad faith. GAO found, however, that the protest did not contain sufficient evidence to establish that the Army issued the amendment in bad faith.

Trinity is represented by Chalfrantz Perry of Perry & Associates. The agency is represented by Felix Mason, Stephen Hernandez, and Scott N. Flesch of the U.S. Army. GAO attorneys Kasia Dourney and Christina Sklarew participated in the preparation of the decision.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://staging.pub-k.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Trinity-Global.pdf” title=”Trinity Global”]