Dispute over $1.9B IRS contract heads to court

The number of companies protesting awards under a $1.9 billion IRS program management contract may grow now that a fifth protest has been withdrawn at the Government Accountability Office.

Chevo Consulting has withdrawn its GAO protest after learning that four other companies had already gone to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims objecting to the awards that the IRS made in August.

Five companies were chosen at the time for the contract known as EPPIS: Centennial Technology, Deloitte Consulting, Etelligent Group, Integrated System and Noblis.

The Enterprise Program-Project Integration Services blanket purchase agreement has a seven-year period of performance.

EPPIS covers services such as program and project management, engineering, test, cybersecurity, cloud services and operations.

GovTribe information on EPPIS describes the IRS' goal as to align program technical and management approaches, organize resources and management controls with costs, performance requirements and scheduling demands.

Filed at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims are challenges from AccelGov, 22nd Century Technologies, FedTec and Harmonia Holdings.

Chevo had a choice to either withdraw or see GAO dismiss the protest. GAO will not consider a protest if there is a related protest at the court. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has higher jurisdiction than GAO.

Chevo can join the protests at the court. We’ve reached out to Chevo for comment and will update this post when and if we hear back.

The protest at GAO challenged the IRS' evaluation of Chevo's technical proposal, past performance and the agency's best-value decision.

The protesters are the court are also challenging how the IRS evaluated proposals. They are arguing that the IRS relied on a “flawed evaluation” when it made its awards.

The IRS was to respond by Monday (today), then the protesters have until Sept. 27 to respond. Motions and cross motions have other deadlines in October with oral arguments set for Nov. 11.