Protest Involving Bid Sample Requirement

A protester to a contract award claimed that the bid sample requirement of the solicitation should have been waived and that it had advised the agency that it would protest the award. The issue of whether the protest was filed before the award was not resolved as it involved only a procedural defect. The protest was denied because: refusal to waive the sample requirement was proper since the item offered by the protester had been purchased by another agency and not by the purchasing office as specified; there was no objective to finding the bid nonresponsive on the basis of failure to include the manufacturer's Acceptance Test Procedures needed to test items; the protester did not meet the burden of proof that items missing from the sample were lost by the purchasing office; the fact that the agency took about 100 days to evaluate the sample instead of 15 days permitted by solicitation did not prejudice the protester; and allegations of past improper actions on procurements did not affect the validity of this award.