Hirt Co.
| Decision Date | 23 June 1988 |
| Docket Number | B-230864 |
| Parties | Hirt Company No. 88-1 CPD 605 |
| Court | Comptroller General of the United States |
PROCUREMENT - Competitive Negotiation - Sureties - Acceptability DIGEST 1. Contracting officer's rejection of individual sureties as nonresponsible is reasonable where certificates of sufficiency, contained in each sureties' affidavit of Individual Surety were questionable and all other attempts to verify the statement of assets of each surety were unsuccessful and cast further doubt on the veracity of the sureties. PROCUREMENT - Bid Protests - GAO procedures - Protest timeliness - 10-day rule 2. Protester's new and independent ground of protest is dismissed as untimely since it does not independently satisfy the timeliness rules of General Accounting Office's Bid Protest Regulations.
Hirt Company protests the Air Force's rejection of its proposal under request for proposals (RFP) No. F49642-88RAll0 for a construction project requiring the removal of asbestos and the replacement of steam and condensate lines in various aircraft hangars at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. Hirt's proposal was rejected due to the contracting officer's determination that Hirt had failed to provide responsible individual sureties for its performance and payment bonds.
We deny the protest in part and dismiss it in part.
The RFP, issued on January 28, 1988, contemplated award of a firm, fixed- price contract and included price as the only evaluation factor for award. Award was to be made to the offeror whose proposal represented the lowest cost to the government. The RFP also required a performance bond of 100 percent of the contract price and a payment bond of varying amounts depending on the ultimate contract price.
Hirt submitted the apparent low proposal. On February 16, Hirt was called to a meeting with the Air Force in order to verify its price since it was considerably below the government estimate and the next low offeror. Hirt verified that its price was correct and the Air Force proceeded with contract award to Hirt, on initial proposals without price discussions, by asking Hirt to submit the necessary performance and payment bonds. Hirt, however, experienced difficulty in securing corporate sureties for its bonds. After several weeks, the contracting officer notified Hirt that it had until March 18 to submit the required bonds or no longer be considered for award. The contracting officer states that this deadline was necessary because of the urgency of the project and the potential of slippage in the contract work schedule. Hirt delivered the required bonds on March 18 using two individual sureties it obtained through a broker. The contracting officer then began her attempts to determine the acceptability of the proposed sureties.
Both sureties submitted an Affidavit of Individual Surety (Standard Form 28) and listed the same business address in Wyoming. The first surety indicated a net worth of $141.5 million on her affidavit; the other indicated a net worth of $152 million. The first surety listed over $43 million in outstanding surety obligations, while the second surety listed over $25 million in outstanding obligations. The certificate of sufficiency contained in each affidavit was signed by the same trust officer with a trust company in Texas. According to the contracting officer, she called the trust officer, at the telephone number listed, and was told by him that he no longer worked for the trust company, that he did not know the sureties, and that he had only signed the certificates of sufficiency at the request of another employee of the trust company.
The contracting officer then tried to contact the sureties themselves but was unsuccessful. The contracting officer reached an answering service at the number listed for the first surety and was told that she was not in and it was not known when she would return. At the number listed for the second surety, the contracting officer reached a business called Tools and Gadgets. The secretary who answered the telephone identified the second surety as the owner of the business and said she thought he was in Las Vegas with the first surety.
The contracting officer then attempted to determine the validity of the documents submitted by each surety which described their assets. The first surety listed her assets as 1, 920 acres of land worth $3.5 million, 1.85 million tons of unmined graphite worth $115 million, and certificates of deposit worth $23 million for a total net worth of $141.5 million. The second surety listed his assets as including an unspecified amount of timber and wood products worth $2.5 million, 16, 750 tons of unmined antimony worth $125 million and a certificate of deposit worth $25 million for a total net worth of $152.5 million. The unmined mineral deposits listed by both sureties are located in the 1, 920 acres of land listed as owned by the first surety. No proof of value of the land was provided other than documents relating to mineral deposits. Both sureties also indicated that the assets they listed represented 10O percent of the stock of two wholly-owned corporations.
In describing her assets, the first surety included an undated letter from an ore engineering firm proposing to survey sample, assay and prepare reports on mining claims. The subject of the letter was, however, a different mineral...
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