Does anyone have any experience with the Government issuing separate prime contracts with different divisions of the same company under the same program? For example, and hypothetically speaking, one division has responsibility for a certain platform. A separate division of the same company has responsibility for the motors that go on the platform. Can the Government issue separate prime contracts to each division, and furnish the motors to the division responsible for the platform as GFE? Any examples of this? Any prohibitions? Pros? Cons?

Thanks in advance. Hope I laid out the situation clearly enough.

Are you trying to avoid any additional fee charged by the platform guys if they act as prime to the motor part of the company? Many of the defense contractors we deal with have intercompany charges that they treat just like any other subcontract charge.

In your example, what about warranty issues? If I accept the motor, I start the warranty period. I then issue it as GFE to the platform guys who take however long to do their part (all during my paid for warranty time). If the platform guys time is long enough, I can see an advantage to having only one contract so my warranty on the entire platform all starts at the same time.

Did you issue both tasks as one solicitation and the company wants separate contracts post-award? If they?re separate solicitations and one company with two separate divisions just so happen to win, I don?t see the issue as long as there?s no OCI (e.g. one division creating a widget, the other one testing).

What are the operational possibilities for ?finger-pointing? between the two divisions? The projects seem closely related; maybe an MOU or ACA should be established to remove the government from liability should there be any ambiguities that arise during performance.

Can the Government issue separate prime contracts to each division, and furnish the motors to the division responsible for the platform as GFE?

The answer is yes. Why? Because nothing prohibits it. Why the Government would do that is not clear to me. I wouldn't do it, because it does not seem to make good business sense. But I suppose an agency could have a good reason.