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Vendor Responsibilty


duke38

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Greetings,

I recently awarded a contract for commodities to a GSA scheduled small business vendor for vehicles off their schedule. The award was for 2 mil and awarded on 30 September 2015. There were 4 vendors who submitted a proposal and the award went to the LPTA vendor. There was no debriefing as this is not required when using a mandatory source of supply under FAR part 8, however today a I received an email for a agency protest from one of the unsuccessful offerors stating that the winning bidder cannot be awarded a federal contract because they were recently fined and penalized by a federal agency for not having a required license to sell to certain entities. Before I awarded this contract I checked and filed the System for Award Management report that stated this vendor was not on any debarred list or owed any delinquent taxes to the federal Government. The allegations may or may not be true but if this vendor was considered barred or banned from a Government contract then wouldn't they lose their GSA contract therefore we would not be able to make an award to them in the first place. Also is this unsuccessful offeror protest even valid since this is a FAR Part 8 contract?

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Is the agency-level protest timely? See FAR 33.103( e ).

Are you required to suspend performance of the awarded order? See FAR 33.103( f )( 3 ).

You don't have to wait for 35 days to issue your decision (see FAR 33.103( g )) -- you can issue your decision tomorrow if your agency procedures allow you to. Your decision should be to deny the protest because the schedule contractor does not show an exclusion in SAM, and it is a well-established principle that once an offeror has been determined to be responsible and is awarded a schedule contract, there is no requirement that an agency conduct an additional responsibility determination when issuing an order under the contract, since a responsibility determination was already made at the time of award of the underlying schedule contract. I am assuming the protester provided no evidence of the successful awardee's ineligibility.

When you write your decision, please use correct terminology. I think you awarded an order, not a contract. If you did award a contract, then my paragraph above does not apply. Did you award an order or a contract?

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Is the agency-level protest timely? See FAR 33.103( e ).

Are you required to suspend performance of the awarded order? See FAR 33.103( f )( 3 ).

You don't have to wait for 35 days to issue your decision (see FAR 33.103( g )) -- you can issue your decision tomorrow if your agency procedures allow you to. Your decision should be to deny the protest because the schedule contractor does not show an exclusion in SAM, and it is a well-established principle that once an offeror has been determined to be responsible and is awarded a schedule contract, there is no requirement that an agency conduct an additional responsibility determination when issuing an order under the contract, since a responsibility determination was already made at the time of award of the underlying schedule contract. I am assuming the protester provided no evidence of the successful awardee's ineligibility.

When you write your decision, please use correct terminology. I think you awarded an order, not a contract. If you did award a contract, then my paragraph above does not apply. Did you award an order or a contract?

Yes you are correct I awarded an order and thanks for answering my question. I was trying to find out if I needed to determine responsibility on a GSA scheduled contractor after they were already determined to be responsible on their base contract.

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There appears to be enough information posted for vendors to identify the procurement being discussed. You must assume that one or more of the offerors is viewing these posts--if not the protester itself.

This is why this Term of Use is posted.

11. No disclosure of proprietary business data or source selection sensitive information. Examples used in discussions are to be discussed in a hypothetical format. (Emphasis provided.

Terms of Use.

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