The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has denied a motion by General Dynamics [GD] challenging an award by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last November to Unisys [UIS] to integrate transportation security equipment that is deployed to airports across the U.S.
In her ruling, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Chief Judge Susan Braden said that while TSA technical evaluation team had some concerns related to Unisys’ proposed connectivity solution, the agency’s “decision that Unisys’s proposal presented only a ‘Moderate’ risk to the TSA was not arbitrary and capricious.
While TSA judged GD’s proposal the be better technically than Unisys’, good versus acceptable, Unisys’ bid was nearly $151 million lower, according to the 41 page decision, which was rendered on March 29 but publicly released on April 9 to give the parties time to review the document and provide redactions related to sensitive information.
“Although the GD[MS] quote offered benefits to the Government, it is pretty clear that the benefits of the GD[MS] quote do not approach the $150,082,932.89 differential in price,” Braden said in her decision. The MS refers to GD’s Mission Systems business, which was the incumbent on the Security Technology Integrated Program (STIP) contract.
Under STIP, GD has been working to integrate TSA’s roughly 15,000 pieces of security equipment at airports onto a single network. Under the recompete won by Unisys, the company will continue the integration efforts to include modernization and enhancement efforts. The new program is called DOMAIN, which is an acronym for Domain Awareness Integrated Network.
The five-year DOMAIN award is worth $250 million.
Asked for a comment and whether a stop work order against Unisys in effect for several months had been lifted, a TSA spokesman replied via email that the agency “has no comment and believes the opinion is clear. In upholding the TSA’s evaluation and award determination, the United States Court of Federal Claims held that the government did not violate the standard” in federal acquisition regulations.
Unisys said any comments would first have to be cleared by TSA.
GD was the only losing bidder to protest. The names of the three other companies were redacted.