[Protest of Army Contract Award]

A firm contended that the awardee's bid under an Army solicitation should be rejected as nonresponsive because the awardee allegedly submitted a bid bond without sufficient sureties. The protester claimed that the individual sureties on the bid bond either do not have sufficient net worths in view of their obligations as indemnitors on other bonds with the Army or have improperly failed to disclose the other bonds on which they were obligated as sureties. GAO held that the question of the acceptability of an individual surety is one of responsibility, not responsiveness, and that it does not review affirmative determinations of responsibility unless the protester shows fraud on the part of the procurement officials or the solicitation contains definitive responsibility criteria which allegedly have been misapplied. Accordingly, the protest was dismissed.