[Complaint of Contract Award by Arab Republic of Egypt]

A firm complained of a foreign country's contract award which was funded by an Agency for International Development grant agreement. The complainant argued that its bid was improperly rejected as nonresponsive and that the awardee's bid was improperly accepted. The complainant's bid was rejected because it failed to price one of the required items. The complainant argued that the awardee failed to price the same item, that it provided the price after bid opening, and that the solicitation was ambiguous about the required price. GAO held that no reasonable interpretation of the solicitation could have justified the complainant's omission of the item price, and its bid was properly rejected as nonresponsive. Therefore, the complainant had no direct and substantial interest in the acceptance of the apparently late bid submitted by the awardee. Accordingly, the complaint was denied in part and dismissed in part.