CGI protest nets $2.5B contract

CGI Federal has landed a spot on a $2.5 billion Navy contract to modernize ship-based networks thanks to a successful protest battle.

As we reported in December, the Government Accountability Office ruled in CGI’s favor and told the Navy to make a new source selection decision after changing its price evaluation methodology and asking bidders to resubmit their pricing.

CGI, along with DRS Laurel Technologies, has been added to the Navy Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services contract, known as CANES. The contract has a $2.5 billion ceiling over seven years.

The two join BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Global Technical Systems, Northrop Grumman and Serco, the group of winners named in August.

It was missing that cut that sparked CGI’s protest. They argued that the Navy’s price evaluations and price realism analysis were flawed, and that the Navy failed to conduct equal discussions with bidders and that past performance ratings were flawed.

GAO only agreed with CGI’s price evaluation argument. The other allegations in the protest were denied. But the price evaluations were enough to get GAO to recommend and do-over of the source selection process.

The mistake the Navy made according to the GAO decision is that the Navy changed the quantities it expected to order under a typical task order, but it didn’t change how it was evaluating the proposals. Because of that, GAO ruled the price evaluations were unreasonable.

With the addition of CGI and DRS to the CANES contract, all of the companies that bid on the contract have won spots to compete for task orders going forward. The contract will be used to consolidate and modernize ship-based networks including applications, infrastructure and IT platforms.