Skip to main content

Selection of Foreign Machine Gun as Government's Minimum Need

B-186276 Aug 20, 1976
Jump To:
Skip to Highlights

Highlights

A company protested the award of a contract to a foreign producer and objected to the procurement procedures. After side-by-side testing, technical and cost evaluation, and discussions with two sources in a preprocurement context, the agency selected a foreign product as meeting its minimum needs and conducted negotiations preparatory to executing a sole-source contract. The agency's selection process was necessary to determine the agency's minimum needs since there was insufficient data for making such a determination prior to completion of the process. The selection process was fair, and all parties realized that weapon operational reliability was the paramount performance characteristic and that cost was of secondary importance. The Buy American Act was not applicable to the proposed purchase from a foreign firm since the agency had sufficient sole-source award justification and could validly determine that the item was not available from a domestic source.

Downloads

GAO Contacts

Office of Public Affairs