Claims Court Rejects Challenges to Borsight T-6A Re-Award
A $2.18 billion effort to modernize avionics on hundreds of T-6A trainer aircraft survived a consolidated bid-protest challenge after the United States Court of Federal Claims upheld the Air Force’s re-award of the contract to Borsight Inc. The procurement concerned the T-6A Avionics Replacement Program, which was designed to update avionics on approximately 442 aircraft and related ground-based training simulators. The contract announcement identified Borsight as the awardee of a firm-fixed-price, single-award, indefinite-delivery/
The solicitation used a best-value tradeoff process with four primary evaluation factors: Technical, Technical Risk, Past Performance, and Price. Only proposals meeting the threshold technical requirements proceeded to the best-value analysis. Stevens Aerospace and Defense Systems, LLC, iAccess Technologies, Inc., and Borsight were among the most highly rated offerors in the competitive range. The Source Selection Authority evaluated Borsight at $767,447,755, Stevens at $764,319,446, and iAccess at $713,347,473 in total evaluated price. All three received strong technical ratings and low technical risk ratings, but Borsight and Stevens received satisfactory past performance ratings while iAccess received a limited past performance rating. The Source Selection Authority concluded that Borsight offered the best value because its technical proposal, low risk, and past performance justified its price premium.
The litigation followed an earlier round of protests. iAccess challenged the award at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), while Stevens filed at the Court of Federal Claims. The Air Force took corrective action and later re-awarded the contract to Borsight. Stevens and iAccess renewed their protests, and the Court consolidated the cases. iAccess asserted four counts, while Stevens asserted eighteen. Judge David A. Tapp grouped the arguments into technical evaluation and solicitation compliance, communications between the agency and offerors, and evaluation methodology.
The Court applied the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) standard, asking whether the agency’s action was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise contrary to law, and whether any error was prejudicial. The opinion emphasized the presumption of regularity afforded to agency action and the deferential review applied to negotiated procurements and best-value tradeoffs. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires agencies to document technical assessments and tradeoff judgments, but it does not allow courts to re-score complex engineering evaluations.
On technical compliance, the protestors argued that Borsight should have been excluded or downgraded for issues involving software agreements, data rights, display configuration, reliability figures, Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) components, and Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) calculations. The Court rejected those challenges. Stevens argued that Borsight failed to provide a required software agreement and made inconsistent data-rights commitments. The Court read the Request for Proposals (RFP) as requiring license agreements only “to the extent known” at proposal submission, which allowed flexibility where agreements could be finalized after award. The Court also treated proposed data rights as a technical and procurement judgment entrusted to the Air Force.
The Court reached a similar conclusion on avionics and reliability. Stevens argued that Borsight’s display configuration did not satisfy the solicitation, while both protestors questioned Borsight’s reliability calculations. The Court held that the solicitation did not require further explanation where an offeror marked full compliance and declined to resolve engineering disputes as if it were the technical evaluation team. Although the record could have included more explanation, the Air Force had questioned Borsight’s MTBF figures during discussions, and the agency’s reasoning was sufficiently discernible. The Court also found that the Air Force reasonably accepted Borsight’s responses concerning LRU components and controlled-flight-into-terrain functionality.
The communications dispute centered on a missing Red Hat Linux license in Borsight’s Final Proposal Revision. Stevens argued that the Air Force conducted unequal discussions by notifying Borsight of the missing license and later allowing Borsight to attach it. The Court disagreed. The Air Force already possessed the license from other parts of Borsight’s proposal, references to the license appeared elsewhere in the submission, and Borsight attached the license before the extended deadline. The omission was an obvious clerical mistake, not a substantive proposal defect. FAR 15.306 permits limited exchanges to clarify proposal aspects or resolve minor clerical errors.
The Court also rejected Stevens’s comparison between the Red Hat issue and the Air Force’s inability to obtain past performance information for a $666 million contract performed by Stevens’s subcontractor, CAE US, Inc. Stevens argued that the Air Force should have pursued Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) information under the “too close at hand” doctrine. The agency had notified Stevens that the references lacked usable quality information, Stevens supplied updated references, and those references still did not yield the needed information. The agency was not required to search indefinitely for information not adequately provided in the proposal.
The Court rejected additional challenges to Borsight’s responsibility and the Air Force’s past-performance methodology. Stevens argued that Borsight’s “red” Supplier Performance Risk System (SPRS) score should have affected the responsibility determination. The Court held that the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) required consideration of SPRS information, but did not make a red score dispositive. Stevens also argued that the Air Force discounted some references due to possible source bias, while iAccess argued that the Air Force used an undisclosed aggregation methodology. The Court acknowledged concern that the record did not precisely identify how relevance categories were combined, but the solicitation allowed aggregate consideration, and the record did not show arbitrary treatment.
The best-value tradeoff was central to the decision. iAccess argued that the Air Force mechanically counted strengths, underweighted price, and inadequately justified selecting the highest-priced offeror. The Court held that the agency conducted the tradeoff required by the solicitation. FAR 15.101-1 permits tradeoffs among price and non-price factors and allows the government to accept a higher-priced proposal where the perceived benefits warrant the additional cost. FAR 15.308 requires documentation of tradeoff judgments and benefits associated with additional costs, but does not require quantified tradeoffs.
The Source Selection Advisory Council found that Borsight’s stronger technical approach and stronger past performance offset the approximately 7.05% total evaluated price difference between Borsight and iAccess. It also found that Borsight’s stronger technical approach and lower technical risk offset the approximately 0.41% price difference between Borsight and Stevens. The Court concluded that this explanation sufficiently tied Borsight’s higher price to the evaluated benefits of its proposal. It denied the protestors’ motions for judgment on the administrative record and granted the cross-motions filed by the United States and Borsight.
Legal Perspective: Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the practical limits of bid protests challenging highly technical procurements. Contractors may prevail where they identify a clear solicitation violation, unequal discussions, an unreasonable evaluation method, or an unsupported best-value decision. But disagreement with technical scoring, reliability calculations, or an agency’s interpretation of proposal language is rarely enough. Offerors should treat proposal drafting as litigation preparation. Software licenses, data-rights commitments, subcontractor roles, past-performance references, testing status, and technical assumptions should be clear, consistent, and placed in the correct proposal volume.
Read more at: Court Upholds Air Force’s $2.2 Billion Avionics Contract Award to Borsight
More about Michael Segal
Michael is a business attorney focused on delivering efficient and effective results to his clients. His experience includes both litigation and transactional representation for companies and governmental entities in aerospace, defense, securities, real estate, and general business matters. A former F-15 fighter pilot with over 1,500 flight hours, Michael served as an instructor pilot in the U.S. Air Force before joining the Air Force Reserve with the 701st Combat Operations Squadron in California. He dedicates pro bono efforts to helping veterans with compensation claims and startup guidance.
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