Though the General Accountability Office does not usually have jurisdiction over bid protests of task or delivery orders under indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantify contracts this limitation does not apply to a protest challenging the terms of the underlying solicitation or where the protester claims the order is beyond the scope of the original contract (Specialty Marine, Inc., Comp. Gen. Dec. B-293871. Unless handled by a Court we will reference Comp. Gen. Decisions with only the numeric reference). Once a contract is awarded the GAO will not review modification to the contract because such matters are related to contract administration and are beyond its jurisdiction. However, an exception applies when a protester alleges the modification is beyond the scope of the original contract (Anteon Corp. B-293523). The government modified the contract to allow for changes not contemplated in the original contract where in doing so the contract was almost doubled and the nature of the changes were substantial. The Court ruled the government could not circumvent the competition requirements by modifying a contract not within the contract’s original scope without re-soliciting the contract (Cardinal Maintenance Service Inc. v. US, 63 Fed. Cl. 98).

Though competition is not required before award of a task or delivery order under a Federal Supply Schedule contract, if such competition is held the GAO will entertain a protest to ensure the competition is fair, reasonable and consistent with the solicitation. The GAO affirmed that the exemption from full and open competition for FSS contracts applies only if all goods or services included in each task or delivery order are included and priced on the schedule contract and it sustained a protest where the government had issued a purchase order to a vendor whose quotation included a non-FSS item that was priced above the $2,500 micro-purchase threshold (CourtSmart Digital Systems (B-292995.2). The GAO reiterated its position that exemptions from competitions for orders placed under FSS contracts applies only to those services and goods listed and priced in the FSS schedules. It sustained a protest where the awardee’s schedule contract description of education/experience and functional requirements for a particular job title did not match those for the RFQ position even though the background of the individuals met those specified in the RFQ (American Systems Consulting, B-294644). The GAO also sustained protests where a delivery order was improperly issued for items not on the FSS vendor’s schedule (Armed Services Merchandise Outlet, B-294281) and where specialized online research services were outside the scope of the awardee’s services contract (Information Ventures, B-292743).

{TAG_FORM_TITLE}