JA ETS 2026-0020 (04-16-26) - Redacted for POSTING_Redacted.pdf

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Office of Acquisitions

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

Justification No.: 2026-0020

Upon the basis of the following justification, I hereby approve the issuance of the contractual action discussed below using other than full and open competition, pursuant to the authority cited herein.

1. Agency and contracting activity:

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Office of Acquisitions 100 F Street, NE Washington, DC 20549

2. Nature and description of action being approved:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposes to negotiate and execute a sole source, firm-fixed price (FFP) contract under Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) FAR Part 12 with Inovitech, LLC. The contract consists of a base period and four option periods for licensing, Operations and Maintenance (O&M) support, and continued specialized enhancements for the use of the Evidence Tracking System (ETS) chain of custody tool.

ETS supports the SEC’s Division of Enforcement (ENF), Office of Technical Services (OTS), Litigation Support Services (LSS) Branch. Inovitech, LLC is the sole proprietor of the IS-A-TASK™ tool that the ETS application is built on and sole provider capable of providing the required support on their proprietary software application at the Tier 1 through Tier 3 levels.

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency needs and the estimated value:

The SEC ETS system creates, tracks, and monitors electronic discovery service requests and other similar services. ETS was developed on the proprietary IS-A-TASK commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) application and is used by the ENF OTS LSS Branch for receipt and tracking of: SEC investigative and litigation data; SEC contractors who support OTS eDiscovery efforts; ENF attorneys and staff to track the status and progress of their eDiscovery requests; and to provide reports to management and users.

The system tracks where media is located during the evidence tracking process while maintaining a chain of custody as the media is transferred to and from different groups during processing. The system allows for the logging of incoming productions [an incoming production is “documents” (e.g. paper, hard drives) received by the SEC in response to a document request during an investigation and allows users to place requests for a variety of services]. The ETS system tracks and manages the requests for end user processing of evidence related activities.

The SEC requires ETS tool enhancements for: 1) Enhanced project submission process; 2) Enhanced reporting capabilities; 3) Enhanced user experience; 4) Additional Application Programming Interface (API) capabilities.

The SEC requires O&M support for the production system, including all component technologies and interfaces that comprise it (e.g., associated configuration, AD/HUB script, Case Open/Close Script, PHP, ODBC Driver, Justification 2026-0020

Database, connections or related infrastructure as it related to the ETS application) to meet required outcomes of ensuring the solution is stable, available, accessible, and reliable.

The estimated value is (for five years).

4. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. § 1901; RFO FAR 12.102(b).

5. Demonstration of a contractor's unique qualifications:

Inovitech LLC is the creator and sole proprietor of the proprietary IS-A-TASK application. Using IS-A-TASK requires a licensing agreement with Inovitech LLC and requires using the support services provided by Inovitech LLC. Inovitech has unique, institutional, knowledge of the SEC’s ETS application and the integration of the proprietary IS-A-TASK software within the SEC’s unique and specialized environment to which it operates.

The IS-A-TASK application itself is uniquely qualified by providing the SEC with specialized functionality specific to the SEC’s unique division workflow and business process. IS-A-TASK offers unique features and functions that other similar applications lack yet are necessary to accomplish the SEC’s unique mission. IS-A- TASK provides Microsoft Entra ID group integration, unique tracking functionality for all media, the unique ability to store all case related information in a single location within the application, and the unique ability to automatically calculate project due dates by project size per service level agreements. IS-A-TASK meets the SEC’s reporting requirements and operates securely on SEC-managed servers.

6. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under 5.202 applies:

The marketplace has been monitored for alternatives in an effort to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable. Inovitech, LLC is the only available source that can meet SEC’s requirements for ETS tool O&M support and enhancements due to IS-A-TASK licensing requirements. Ongoing efforts will continue to be made to identify other potential sources for future, competitive re-procurement of this support. The J&A notice will be publicized IAW RFO FAR 6.301.

7. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The Contracting Officer determines that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable based on an analysis of historical pricing for comparable services, pricing information received during market research, and the Government’s Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE).

8. Description of Market Research Conducted and Market Research Results:

Market research was conducted in accordance with RFO FAR Part 10 by engaging in demonstrations and follow-up question-and-answer correspondence with four vendors selected for their legal eDiscovery software solutions.

Market research indicated there are no other available applications that have the product functionality out of the box as IS-A-TASK or that can deliver such a system without an extremely significant and timely development effort. See Section 11 for efforts that will be made to overcome future barriers to competition. Market research results show Inovitech, LLC is the only source that can reasonably meet SEC’s requirements for continued support of the ETS tool O&M support.

Justification 2026-0020

9. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

Failure to execute this contract would result in the Division of Enforcement, Office of Technical Services inability to create, track, and monitor electronic discovery service requests, maintain chain of custody for evidence related to SEC investigations, and verify and track the associated work performed by contractors. SEC Attorneys in ENF would not have visibility to the status and workflow associated with the cases they are working on. The OTS team would be unable to maintain continuity of operations without operations and maintenance of the system that must be provided by the OEM contractor due to the proprietary nature of the application coding.

10. Listing of the sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition:

The following potential contractors were contacted as part of market research efforts:

1. Doculogix;

2. Agility Blue;

3. M8; and

4. Workstorm.

11. Statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

Any responsible inquiries/comments resulting from the GPE notice concerning the current requirement will be carefully considered. As to future requirements, the SEC is evaluating building a next generation Evidence Tracking System on the Appian platform as a module of the Enforcement Applications Platform. Dependencies include, but are not limited to, defining the functionality requirements of the new ETS system itself, which are still being developed and enhanced under the current tool. The continued development of, and complete transfer into, a new cloud based ETS system will require a significant amount of configuration/customization to match the current ENF business process which itself will require a sizable investment in cost and resources. The SEC anticipates these future developments will help remove barriers to competition arising from the configuration of the current ETS application on the IS-A-TASK application.