[Protest of Any Army Contract Award for Machine Guns]

A firm protested an Army contract award, contending that: (1) the Army should have provided to all offerers certain manufacturing data which had been developed by another contractor; and (2) one offerer had a competitive advantage over the other bidders by virtue of its relationship to the contractor. The Army argued that the information included in the technical data package contained sufficient information for offerers to prepare proposals so that each offerer could propose a manufacturing process tailored to its own equipment and capabilities, rather than on the process developed by another contractor. GAO found that: (1) the data was developed independently by the one offerer's parent company, and any advantage to that offerer was due to its parent company's prior experience; and (2) a contracting agency is not required to provide technical data to all offerers in an attempt to equalize competition. The protester also argued that the parent company planned to alter the technical data to adversely affect the other offerers' ability to prepare proposals competitive with its subsidiary. GAO found that: (1) the protester failed to offer any evidence in support of its allegation that the technical data used in the solicitation were defective due to improper modifications; and (2) the protest alleging a solicitation defect for failure to indicate what weight would be given to an offerer's price was untimely filed. Accordingly, the protest was denied in part and dismissed in part.