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B-410453 1 (2015-01-02)

handle is hein.gao/gaobadran0001 and id is 1 raw text is: G A O Comptroller General Accountability * Integrity * Reliability of the United States United States Government Accountability Office DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE Washington, DC 20548 The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. D e c i s i o n L .-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . .. Matter of: Smith and Nephew, Inc. File: B-410453 Date: January 2, 2015 John G. Horan, Esq., McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, for the protester. Ashley D. Presley, Esq., Department of Veterans Affairs, for the agency. Gary R. Allen, Esq., and Christina Sklarew, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest challenging a technical specification (set out as a minimum technical requirement) in a solicitation for sterile wound dressing as unduly restrictive of competition is sustained where the record shows that the agency: (1) has not established its actual need for the requirement; (2) acknowledges that it has no data to support setting any specific requirement as its actual need; and (3) based its specification on an analysis of industry responses to inquiries about what products might be available, rather than first determining the agency's actual needs. DECISION Smith & Nephew, Inc., of St. Petersburg, Florida, protests the terms of request for quotations (RFQ) No. VA1 19-14-Q-0158, issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for sterile foam dressings for wound care. Smith & Nephew contends that the RFQ's minimum absorption requirement does not reasonably relate to the agency's needs and is therefore unduly restrictive of competition. We sustain the protest. BACKGROUND In preparation for an attempt to standardize procurements for sterile foam dressings, the agency, on December 19, 2013, posted a request for information (RFI) to the General Services Administration's eBuy website seeking sources for three types of dressings. Contracting Officer's Statement (COS) at 1. Each dressing was designated with a contract line item number (CLIN), as follows:

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