LindaK

Looking for opinions here. As a result of a solicitation containing the following language, does the Government have to make a single award? "Due to the interrelationship of supplies and/or services to be provided hereunder, the Government reserves the right to make a single award to the offeror whose offer is considered in the best interest of the Government, price and other factors considered. Therefore, offerors proposing less than the entire effort specified herein may be determined to be unacceptable. " Thanks!

Garth: I think if you really thought about it, you could come up with a number of examples where an item would be sold to non-governmental entities, but not the general public and these sales to non-governmental entities would qualify the item as a commercial item. How about some of the things that a hospital (non-governmental entity) might buy that the general public wouldn't, but that the federal government (VA) would?

Kathleen: Presuming that you are overseas, then look at FAR 5.202(a)(12).

Thanks for the clarification - and I agree!

The scenario suggested by here_2_help has nothing to do with the Basic Agreement/BOA, though. That would be true whether the awards were orders under an agreement or were individual contracts. Vern: Can you share what those regulations/statutes would be? Thanks!

I do find this to be an interesting discussion. FAR 5.301 requires synopsis of awards in excess of $25K. There is no exception related to trade secrets/FOIA. Clearly this is an area in which the regulations need to be updated and clarified, particularly if a KO is commiting a federal crime because he/she complied with a statutory requirement to publicize a contract award.

Brian's situation, unless he misstated it, is that the CO won't release the award price on a Part 13 acquisition. How did this discussion evolve into line item pricing? The award price (maybe not line item pricing, but we can't decide that by the information provided) must be disclosed and I think Brian should certainly pursue this obvious misunderstanding.

Vern: The only downside of not reviewing the other offers for technical acceptability would be if one of those other offers disclosed information that would shed some doubt on the low offeror's promise. For instance, if the solicitation included detailed design specifications and there was some requirement to procure a subassembly from a directed source (such as on a source controlled drawing/spec) and that particular source was no longer in a position to provide that subassembly. The low offeror may have used prior quotes for the obsolete component as the basis for formulating its price without realizing that the component was obsolete, whereas other companies may have learned of the obsolescence and qualified their proposals on developing a new source/component. It may sound unlikely, but I've seen it happen. But generally, and depending on what you are buying, I agree with Don and jtolli.

How about the myth that companies must offer their best/most-favored customer price to the Government?