The Air Force also requested that Boeing produce certain broad categories of documents bearing upon, among other things, Boeing’s interpretation of the solicitation and several of its protest allegations. Boeing objected to that request, asserting that the documents sought were not relevant. The agency responded that its request was reasonable and limited, and sought relevant documents, which would be “necessary to allow GAO to perform a complete and accurate review of the issues in Boeing’s protests.” Air Force’s Response to Boeing’s Objection to Air Force’s Document Production Request (Apr. 11, 2008) at 1. Our Bid Protest Regulations provide, in pertinent part, that “[i]n appropriate cases, the contracting agency may request that the protester produce relevant documents, or portions of documents, that are not in the agency’s possession.” 4 C.F.R. sect. 21.3(d). 

We denied the Air Force’s request, because our regulations do not provide for broad agency request for documents whose existence and relevance are not at all apparent.[38] Rather, our regulations are intended to permit a contracting agency, in an appropriate case, to request a specific relevant document or documents, of which the agency is aware and does not itself possess. See 60 Fed. Reg. 40737, 40738 (wherein, in establishing this rule, we indicated that our regulations were not intended to allow “wide-open” document requests of protesters); see also Bid Protests at GAO: A Descriptive Guide, 8th ed. 2006, at 28, in which our Office described the purpose for our “reverse discovery” rule as follows:

Occasionally, the agency may be aware of the existence of relevant documents that only the protester possesses. In appropriate cases, the agency may request that the protester produce those documents.

(The Boeing Company, B-311344; B-311344.3; B-311344.4; B-311344.6; B-311344.7; B-311344.8; B-311344.10; B-311344.11, June 18, 2008) (pdf)