Army lets some protesters back into ITES-4H competition
Gettyimages.com/ Dragos Condrea
By
Nick Wakeman
But other challenges are still moving forward in court regarding how the Army has evaluated bids for the $10 billion multiple-award IT hardware contract.
The Army and Court of Federal Claims are moving to clear at least some of the protests involving the $10 billion ITES-4 Hardware contract.
As the Army moved through the separate phases of the competition and eliminated bidders, it was hit with protests at the Government Accountability Office and then the court.
The court received protests from 10 companies. Seven were grouped together in one case, but the other three continued as separate matters.
Those three separate cases are in the process of being dismissed by the court after the Army said it will take a corrective action.
Insight Public Sector, Countertrade Products and Norseman will proceed to the third phase of the competition. The Army will make a competitive range determination, open discussions with bidders and allow them to submit revised proposals.
In other words, they are back in the running for a spot on the contract. The Army plans to make 17 awards for the 10-year vehicle.
The other seven protesters in the single case are GovWave, Futron, Government Acquisitions, DH Technologies, Enterprise Technology Solutions, Unicom Government and Advanced Computer Concepts. It is unclear at the moment where their case stands.
On Nov. 25, Judge Marian Blank Horn granted the Army permission to exceed the page count in its cross-motion for judgement. That is the most recent filing in the case.
Horn is also the judge managing the other three cases. We will continue to monitor the docket for any sign of another corrective action or significant development.
Many of the filings in all of the cases are sealed so a lot of details are not available, but they all fall under the broad umbrella of challenges to how the Army has conducted evaluations of proposals.