A cybersecurity provider for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is urging reconsideration of the recent follow-on award for the work to a rival company.
The transition out of the contract held by information-technology specialist Criterion Systems, of Vienna, Va., was driven “by a perceived need to rapidly remediate a contract protest action lingering from 2016,” Criterion co-founder and CEO Promod Sharma wrote in a Nov. 21 letter to NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty.
The letter does not identify what Sharma called the “new, unproven contractor” by name, but Criterion subsequently said it is Washington, D.C.-based enterprise solutions firm DKW Communications.
“I strongly suggest that the NNSA cancel the current award, either issue Amendment 4 to the July 2017 procurement to provide comprehensive coverage with the existing solicitation or amend the current contractor scope of work until a more comprehensive solicitation can be issued in the coming months,” Sharma wrote.
The specific schedule for the transition from Criterion to DKW was not immediately available. Criterion’s NNSA contract had a total value of $271 million, the company said, while the new award has a maximum value of more than $182 million.
DKW previously contested the 2016 cybersecurity contract and two separate task orders, for information-technology support and policy and governance services, the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency awarded to Criterion in 2016. The company argued that Criterion’s use of compressed line spacing in its request for quotations violated NNSA formatting directions and unfairly gave it more space to argue its case within the allotted 10 pages.
The protest against the cybersecurity task order was filed after the 10-day window for Criterion to begin work on the cybersecurity contract, which it did, a spokesperson said. DKW filed a supplement to that protest with the GAO, which had accepted the other protests for review.
In May 2016, the Government Accountability Office recommended the NNSA re-evaluate its page limit for the request for quotations to determine whether its volume reflects agency needs. If it found the page limit meets its requirements, Criterion’s quotations should be rejected and the task orders issued to DWK, if appropriate, the GAO report says.
In June 2017, the NNSA issued a new request for quotations to three companies that in 2015 had received blanket purchase agreements for information-technology and cybersecurity support services: Criterion, DKW, and IntePros Federal, of Washington, D.C.
The NNSA issued the new task order to DKW on Nov. 14, 2018. It features a one-year base and four single-year options, in total worth up to $182.6 million. The company’s cyber-operations responsibilities include “secure monitoring of NNSA system boundaries and other departmental environments and information assurance support for systems accreditations,” an NNSA spokesperson said by email.
“This potential contract transition is being driven by the NNSA procurement organization rather than the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) who is responsible for securing the entirety of NNSA’s infrastructure,” Sharma wrote in his letter.
The NNSA spokesperson on Nov. 27 that Criterion had bid on the new contract but was eliminated from consideration for failing to provide “timely quotation revisions.” The agency declined to comment on Sharma’s letter.
Criterion filed its initial cost quote on time, but missed the Nov. 21, 2018, deadline to refile an updated version of the document by 90 seconds after the NNSA amended its request for quotations. The company was then formally rejected from consideration on Jan. 4 of this year.
On Jan. 9, it protested the decision to the Government Accountability Office. But the congressional auditor denied the protest on April 16, agreeing with the NNSA that Criterion’s second quotation was late and failed to address certain aspects of the revised request for quotations.
Less than a week later, Criterion took its case to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. It lost there as well in an Aug. 6 ruling from Judge Richard Hertling.
Criterion is considering its next steps, the spokesperson said, without discussing details.
DKW President and CEO Darryl Washington did not respond to a message left through the company’s website. Calls to the DKW office were not answered.
Founded in 2005, Criterion provides cybersecurity, data management, information-technology infrastructure and other services to clients including the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, Agriculture, and Commerce, as well as the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Army.
DKW Communications, founded in 2001, offers cybersecurity and intelligence, management consulting, and other support for customers such as the NNSA, Defense Intelligence Agency
In the letter to Gordon-Hagerty, Sharma emphasized his company’s successes in carrying out its cybersecurity mission for the NNSA, including: relocating the full transfer of the agency’s Information Assurance Response Center from a commercial strip mall to a secured compound at the Nevada Support Facility in Las Vegas, and maintaining the agency’s Tier 2 cloud security certification.
