Free Memorandum - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

Case 1:07-cv-00714-GWM

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Filed 10/19/2007

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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS ____________________________________ | | | Plaintif, | | v. | | THE UNITED STATES | | Defendant. | ____________________________________| MASAI TECHNOLOGIES CORP.

CoFC No. 07-714 BID PROTEST (Judge George Miller)

DECLARATION OF MASAI TROUTMAN I, Masai Troutman, being duly sworn, depose and say: 1. I am over the age of eighteen years and I have personal knowledge of the matters stated herein. This declaration is provided in the context of a Protest before the Court of Federal Claims. 2. I, Masai Troutman, am the managing partner and senior SAP consultant for MASAI Technologies Corporation ("MTC"). 3. From January 12, 2004 thru January 11th, 2006, MTC provided consulting services for the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency ("USAMMA"), Fort Detrick, Maryland in the role of sustainment support contractor for USAMMA's system, named USAMMA's Revolution in Logistics ("URL"). MTC provided SAP technology sustainment support and knowledge transfer to the Army staff. During the Federal fiscal year 2005, USAMMA and other Army Agencies (6TH MLMC, USAMITC, and USAMMCE) began execution of a program to reengineer multiple Army systems into a single new system named the Theatre Enterprise Wide Logistics System ("TEWLS"). 1
PROTECTED INFORMATION TO BE DISCLOSED ONLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH U.S. COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS PROTECTIVE ORDER

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4. In the URL procurement, MTC's contract responsibilities were focused solely on the sustainment and/or maintenance of the existing USAMMA URL system. MTC's daily contract activities and responsibilities involved resolving URL configuration and technical system errors, responding to break-fix customer requests, keeping the URL system functioning at an operational state, and training and knowledge transfer of the URL SAP technology to Army staff. The URL sustainment contract task activities served as a model for the current protested TEWLS Sustainment RFQ contract task activities, thus MTC fully understood the protested TEWLS Sustainment RFQ statement in concept. 5. In May 2005, MTC's USAMMMA URL sustainment contract was modified by then Army Contracting Officer Monte Kapec to allow MTC to develop two (2) URL prototype interfaces to exchange data with two Army Medical systems, Web MRE and ARSAMS. MTC was required to only use the URL system and MTC's own hardware and software to build these prototypes. The Army communicated to MTC its plan to utilize the URL interface prototypes to eventually build actual TEWLS interfaces between TEWLS and two Army external systems named Web MRE and ARSAMS. At that time Mr. Kapec specifically stated to me that MTC was being excluded from TEWLS participation to eliminate MTC's access to proprietary information that would provide it an unfair competitive advantage during a possible future TEWLS sustainment procurement. 6. During the development of the interface prototypes, newly appointed contracting officer David Denton and the TEWLS Program Management Office ("PMO") explicitly directed Contracting Office Technical Representative ("COTR"), Mr. Cal-Abram Johnson, to deny or "restrict" MTC's access to TEWLS proprietary information and TEWLS personnel to eliminate an "unfair advantage" during future competitive contracts. 2
PROTECTED INFORMATION TO BE DISCLOSED ONLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH U.S. COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS PROTECTIVE ORDER

Case 1:07-cv-00714-GWM

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7. During the development of the two interface prototypes, MTC's staff was explicitly denied access to TEWLS proprietary development information (designs, configurations, problem reports, test results, customer requirements/blueprints) through physical relocation from buildings where TEWLS members worked, denial of TEWLS electronic data access, denial of TEWLS system configuration access, and denial of TEWLS documentation access. In addition, MTC was organizationally disallowed participation in any TEWLS development meetings related to the two prototype interfaces based upon Mr. Denton's reference to USAMRAA's standard service contract clause entitled "Organizational and Consultant Conflicts of Interest (MAR 1999) (USAMRAA), which is based upon FAR Subpart 9.5 "Organizational and Consultant Conflict of Interest." 8. The OCI restrictions of MTC were enforced by the Army COTR, Mr. Cal-Abram Johnson. Mr. Johnson was directed by Mr. Denton and the TEWLS PMO to deny MTC TEWLS proprietary development information to eliminate potential OCI in future competitive related TEWLS procurements. 9. On November 22, 2005, in response to MTC's allegations of being excluded from current or future TEWLS participation, Mr. Denton produced the report entitled, "FINAL REPORT ­ MTC Integration, Inc. Concerns and Allegations into Exclusion from the TEWLS Process" (the "Exclusion Report"), attached hereto as Exhibit 1. 10. The report attempted to justify the Army's position to exclude MTC from direct access to TEWLS development information in an effort to eliminate any unfair competitive advantages" during future "competitive procurements." 11. Mr. Denton's 2005 TEWLS Exclusion Report clearly contradicts the underlying assumptions in the Comptroller General's denial of MTC's protest (B-298880.3 et al.) ([1] that 3
PROTECTED INFORMATION TO BE DISCLOSED ONLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH U.S. COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS PROTECTIVE ORDER

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access by Bearing Point, Inc. ["BPI"] and CompqSoft provided no potential OCI; and [2] that the agency's past performance evaluation of MTC was reasonable) in three significant ways: a. The Army organizations which makeup TEWLS specifically identified the MTC's staff and performance ratings as being both "outstanding" and "excellent." See Exhibit 1 at 1, ¶2 and 3 ¶, 4. b. Mr. Denton emphatically stated that MTC's significant Ft. Detrick Army contract focus was on sustainment of the USAMMA URL system, NOT the TEWLS implementation. MTC only performed two (2) interface prototypes directly for USAMMA that would eventually be used by the TEWLS implementation contractors to fully implement them into the TEWLS system. See Exhibit 1 at 3, ¶ 6. c. TEWLS PMO and CO Denton recognized that access to the "proprietary" TEWLS development information and data presented an unfair advantage for future competitive procurements, thus potentially creating an OCI. See Exhibit 1 at 6, ¶ 10. 12. BP and CompQSoft performed for over two years as TEWLS systems engineers and implementation consultants, and BP performed primary roles as both TEWLS Program Management support and TEWLS "maintenance" contractors (per CO Denton's September 17th, 2006 OCI justification letter to MTC) and BP's (TEWLS 2005 Contracts from GovWorks solicitation RFQ 36132 and its Q&A and RFQ 36131.) Their participation in TEWLS individually and collectively represents System Engineering and Technical Assistance roles performed for over two years on the TEWLS program. Their participation in this protested RFQ represents a clear FAR 9.5 OCI violation in that their unfettered access to TEWLS proprietary system information and documentation both brought significant influence in engineering the TEWLS system for its current and future states. BP and CompQSoft create an impermissible OCI as defined by FAR 9.5 and in alignment with CO Denton's own 2005 Exclusion Report. The Army and CO Denton's decisions and

communications during the current protested TEWLS sustainment support RFQ is in direct 4
PROTECTED INFORMATION TO BE DISCLOSED ONLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH U.S. COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS PROTECTIVE ORDER

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contradiction to Denton's own Army documented records and proclaimed practices , thus demonstrating the arbitrary and capricious nature of this flawed TEWLS RFQ procurement.

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 1746. Executed on this 19th day of October 2007.
Digitally signed by Masai Troutman DN: CN = Masai Troutman, C = US, O = MTC Integration, OU = MTC Frederick Reason: I am approving this document Date: 2007.10.18 10:25:53 -04'00'

______________________________ Mr. Masai Troutman MTC Lead Manager and Consultant

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PROTECTED INFORMATION TO BE DISCLOSED ONLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH U.S. COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS PROTECTIVE ORDER