Engility, Booz Allen continue seesaw fight for Navy contract

In round one, Engility was the winner and Booz Allen Hamilton was the one complaining that it was being treated unfairly.

Now, the tide has turned. After the Navy took a corrective action on the $40 million contract, it decided to award the contract to Booz Allen.

Engility has filed their protest with the Government Accountability Office claiming the evaluations the Navy did as part of their corrective action were improper. In others, Engility says they should still be the winner.

The Navy customer is classified, so I don’t have many details on what kind of work is to be done.

Engility filed their protest Nov. 7. A decision is expected by Feb. 15.

This protest fight started in May when Engility won the contract and Booz Allen protested.

Though not the majority, it’s not uncommon to see awards flip from one company to the other when protests are filed and agencies take corrective action.

I don’t have any stats to back this up, but looking back at our coverage, and I hate to tell Engility this, but they probably face an uphill battle to get a positive response from the Navy.

The more common scenario is that there is a protest and then a corrective action and then the same company wins the contract again.

I have seen switches, but they are rare. And even rarer – but they do happen – is when one company wins a contract and a second company protests. The agency takes a corrective action and awards it to a third company. A flurry of protests follows, but usually to no avail.

What makes it hard for a company to prevail in a protest after a corrective action is that the agency has seen the complaints about its decision. The weak areas have been pointed out. They’ve take steps to fix them and made a new award.

It’ll be harder to find the holes this time around. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’ll be tough.