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B-416777 1 (2018-10-18)

handle is hein.gao/gaobadvec0001 and id is 1 raw text is: G A O U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Comptroller General Washington, DC 20548 of the United States Decision Matter of: Government Scientific Source, Inc. File: B-416777 Date: October 18, 2018 Gretchen Pfaffe, for the protester. Jo Spence, Esq., Department of Veterans Affairs, for the agency. Paul N. Wengert, Esq., and Tania Calhoun, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest that agency misevaluated protester's quotation as unacceptable under brand name-or-equal specification is denied where protester offered equal products but did not show that the products met one of the nine salient characteristics that were listed in the solicitation as minimum requirements. DECISION Government Scientific Source, Inc. (GSSI), of Reston, Virginia, a small business, protests the award of a contract to Kanawha Scales & Systems, Inc., of Poca, West Virginia, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. 36C1 OG1 8Q0157, issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for electronic analytical balances. GSSI argues that the VA unreasonably rejected the firm's quotation and improperly awarded the contract to Kanawha at a higher price. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFQ, issued on April 30, 2018, requested commercial item quotations to provide analytical balances to VA facilities under a nationwide service level agreement contract for ordering periods of a base year and 2 option years. The RFQ identified nine models of balances under a brand name-or-equal specification, and incorporated Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provision 52.211-6. RFQ attach. B, Product Description, at 2 & attach. E, Solicitation Provisions, at 5. The RFQ identified nine specific models of Mettler Toledo brand balances, corresponding to nine separate contract line item numbers (CLIN), and then listed nine salient characteristics--each of which was labeled

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