7 - Sole Source Justification.pdf

CUI//SP-SSEL

SOURCE SELECTION INFORMATION – See FAR 2.101 and 3.104

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

CFTC intends to solicit on a sole source basis. The following rationale is provided in accordance with the requirements of RFO 8.401(b).

Agency and Contracting Activity

The Business Operations Branch (BOB) of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Information Technology Branch (IT) seek to renew licenses and maintenance support for ScanWriter, provided by Personable Inc.

Nature and/or description of the action being approved

The CFTC proposes to directly award a delivery order to Personable Inc. for access to ScanWriter and associated maintenance and support. ScanWriter is a data automation and financial investigative tool currently used by the Commission’s Legal Technology Services (“eLaw”) team. It enables investigators to extract and standardize data from printed and handwritten financial records and integrates with Microsoft Power BI to generate visual models for casework.

Description of Supplies/Services & Estimated Value

The proposed contract action provides access to ScanWriter and maintenance support.

Specifically:

ScanWriter Excel Standard Workstation Version GSA Part #: SWEXCELSTDWSMA Quantity: 35 Licenses

Includes:

- Year Maintenance

- Unlimited Common Readers;

- Unlimited Common Power BI Models;

- Priority support and reader requests;

- Customized webinar training;

- Unlimited Software upgrade;and

- AI Agents and prompts.

The estimated cost of this procurement is $471,123.00, for a base period of one (1) year and four (4) additional one (1) year optional periods.

Authority and Supporting Rationale and If Applicable a Demonstration that the Proposed Contractor’s Unique Qualifications to Provide the Required Supply or Service.

In accordance with GSA Subpart 538.7104-3 – “Only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized”.

CFTC must renew its license for ScanWriter (Excel Edition) which is the primary investigative tool for the eLaw program. This tool provides a financial form data entry automation platform that specifically captures financial documents such as bank statements, credit card statements, check images, wire images, deposit images, trading statements, brokerage statements, handwritten notes, and Commodities related statements. Additionally, it is the only tool that allows for the identification of exact and near match fund transfers that help Commission investigators identify wires or transfers to undisclosed accounts utilizing account “in-and-out” data columns, further facilitating linking and filtering of the data. Also, ScanWriter maintains and provides accurate authentication of chain of custody for statements and images. This capability supports compliance with the Federal Rules of Evidence (e.g., 1002 and 1006) which require the availability of the originals that support the analysis or summary, and those originals must be authenticatable under Federal Rule of Evidence 902. ScanWriter preserves this essential workflow by its linking to the originals thus allowing full compliance with the law and associated regulations.

ScanWriter is fully tested, implemented, validated, and integrated with Commission systems and approved for usage in the collection of electronic evidence. The Commission has already invested significant amounts of time and resources into development, testing, training, and integration with the Enterprise eLaw electronic evidence platform to include Relativity. Additionally, ScanWriter’s work-product activity is integrated with the eLaw primary metrics platform Microsoft PowerBI and the E-Discovery automated ticketing system. ScanWriter is proprietary and the only responsible source identified as reasonably available that will satisfy the agency’s requirements.

To change vendors as this juncture would be prohibitively expensive as it would require another large initial capital investment and commitment of a great number of staff hours to support development, lifecycle testing, integration, and training of the new tool. Additionally, a tool change would jeopardize all collected evidence and potentially the admissibility of that evidence as we would longer have access to ScanWriter. Therefore, to mitigate against operational risk the CFTC is seeking to maintain its existing eLaw investigative tool. In order to support the eLaw platform and sustain the evidence derived from the tool, the Commission must purchase identical ScanWriter licenses to those currently in use.

A Determination by the Contracting Officer that the Order Represents the Best Value Consistent with RFO 8.401

The contracting officer determined that the independent government cost estimate is fair and reasonable based on market research (informal vendor quotations for the necessary products) as well as historical contracts for the same or similar items. Also, the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable because GSA FSS pricing has already been determined fair and reasonable by GSA, and adequate price competition is anticipated for this procurement.

Description of Market Research

Market research was conducted by CFTC/IT. Market research showed that no other resource provides an investigative tool that meets all of the agency’s requirements. Personable Inc. is the exclusive source for ScanWriter and does not have any GSA resellers.

Any Other Facts Supporting the Justification

None.

A Statement of the Actions, if Any, the Agency May Take to Remove or Overcome Any Barriers that Led to the Restricted Consideration Before Any Subsequent Acquisition for Supplies or Services is Made

The Division of Administration, Information Technology branch constantly monitors existing and emerging technologies to ensure the Government is taking advantage of enhanced capabilities and efficiencies that are complimentary to Agency goals. In the event of a redesign of CFTC’s eLaw investigative tool and associated platform, the CFTC would consider all viable options, including items from other manufacturers.

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Certifications and Approvals

Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification

I certify this requirement meets the Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which forms a basis for this justification, is complete and accurate.

Gregory Jones Date Contracting Officer’s Representative/Technical Lead Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Contracting Officer’s Certification

I certify that the data supporting the recommendation to solicit and award on a limited source basis is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Susan Hong Date Contracting Officer Commodity Futures Trading Commission