The protester argues that the Air Force’s decision to acquire aircraft from Textron pursuant to the agency’s authority under 10 U.S.C. § 2373 does not comply with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.
As an initial matter, Air Tractor argues that the agency’s proposed award improperly evades the follow-on requirements of the other transaction agreement (OTA) statute found at 10 U.S.C. § 2371b, under which the earlier LAE efforts were undertaken. The protester also contends that the agency’s reliance on 10 U.S.C. § 2373 as authority for this acquisition is not appropriate because the contract is for production, and because the agency has failed to demonstrate that the aircraft at issue meet that statute’s requirements…
We dismiss the protest in part and deny the protest in part… we find nothing in the statutory language requiring an agency to conduct a competition, or consider competitive acquisition methods, before using 10 U.S.C. § 2373.
That was the General Accountability Office decision on Air Tractor’s protest of the Air Force’s sole source contract with Textron for 3 light attack aircraft. HT: Moshe. US Code 2373 Procurement for Experimental Purposes isn’t technically an Other Transaction (2371a and b). The Light Attack program was conducted on a 2371b Other Transaction in the earlier stages. Presumably, if it continued using that authority, then it would have had to compete the buy between Air Tractor and Textron and state there would be follow-on production upfront. That was the precedent set by the Orcale protest decision. But the Air Force simply switched its authority to USC 2373 and went sole source. The GAO found no fault in the action.
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