Sparksoft Corporation
B-422440;.2

• The awardee’s Systems Security Officer (“SSO”) was awarded a positive finding for holding a certified information systems security professional (“CISSP”) certification. The protester alleged that their SSO held the same certification, as demonstrated in the proposal, but was not awarded an equal positive finding.
• The agency admitted the unequal treatment was an evaluation error but argued Sparksoft was not prejudiced by the “oversight.” 
• GAO disagreed, noting that the contemporaneous record showed that when the source selection authority (“SSA”) compared the awardee’s proposal to Sparksoft, the SSA highlighted the awardee’s SSO CISSP certificate as a discriminator between the two proposals.
• When performing the best-value tradeoff, the SSA acknowledged the price differential between the two proposals was “significant” but concluded that “distinguishing positive features” in the awardee’s proposal justified this premium.
• GAO found that it was not clear the SSA would have come to the same conclusion if not for the unequal treatment of the offerors’ SSOs.
• Accordingly, GAO sustained the protest and recommended the agency reevaluate both offerors under the key personnel factor and perform a new best value tradeoff.

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