Eastern Shipbuilding Group (ESG) has not given up its battle in opposition to the U.S. Coast Guard’s resolution to award Stage 2 of the offshore patrol cutter (OPC) program to Austal USA. Although it has withdrawn the bid protest it filed with the GAO in June, Eastern will now pursue the matter within the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (COFC). At problem, says Eastern, is the federal government’s failure to launch data in response to the GAO bid protest.
It is known that the data that the USCG refused to reveal, even beneath a protecting order, was the Austal proposal or the company’s scoring evaluations.
“The federal procurement process is designed to be fair and transparent. Ordinarily, the government discloses reasonable justification for its award decisions to the attorneys representing the parties in a protest. The government has declined to voluntarily disclose the information that might offer that justification. As a result, we are seeking the information and justification through a different legal pathway,” mentioned Joey D’Isernia, President of Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Inc.
Eastern’s motion within the Court of Federal claims isn’t an attraction associated to the bid protest. It is a brand new continuing difficult the company’s procurement award resolution.
Eastern was the unique prime contractor for the entire of the OPC program, however in June 2019 submitted a request to the Coast Guard’s guardian company, the Department of Homeland Security, for extraordinary contract aid after its shipbuilding services sustained important injury ensuing from Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm, in October 2018. In response, then Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin K. McAleenan made the choice to grant extraordinary contract aid restricted to the primary 4 hulls. Following that, the Coast Guard revised the OPC acquisition technique “to mitigate emergent cost and schedule risk by establishing a new, full and open competition for OPCs five and through 15, designated as Stage 2 of the overall program.”