Raytheon protests losing contest for military pact

Raytheon Co. said yesterday it has lodged a protest with the Government Accountability Office over its loss of a potential $6 billion contract to supply the Army and Air Force with a new cargo plane.

Jim Hvizd , vice president for Raytheon's cargo aircraft program, contended that the Waltham defense contractor's proposal for the Joint Cargo Aircraft was more than 15 percent cheaper than that of its competitor, L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., based in New York, which was awarded the hotly contested contract on June 13.

Hvizd said officials from Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems division in El Segundo, Calif., which had planned to equip the C-295 airlifter built by the Spanish manufacturer CASA with electronics for the program, met with Army officials at a June 18 debriefing. He said they "really didn't get a clear answer" on why L-3's bid was accepted.

Company officials were told the Raytheon and L-3 bids had been rated equally on non cost criteria, such as technology, logistics, program management, and past performance, Hvizd said.

"We're basing our protest on errors in the evaluation of our program and in the application of their weighting criteria," he said.

Lieutenant Colonel William Wiggins , an Army spokesman, yesterday said he couldn't comment until Army lawyers had reviewed Raytheon's protest. "We want to make sure everyone has a fair shake in this process," Wiggins said. Army officials have up to 30 days to file a response and may have to produce program documents in the case.

Like most defense contract protests, the Raytheon case has been put under "protective order," meaning documents won't be made public for security and competitive reasons, said Michael Golden , managing associate general counsel for procurement at the GAO. But he said GAO officials are scheduled to rule on the protest by Oct. 1.

Protests of government contracts have become increasingly common over the past decade, with more than 1,300 filed with the GAO last year. Most were withdrawn or the contracting agencies agreed to modify their award processes before the GAO made a ruling. Of the several hundred rulings it made, 29 percent of them upheld the protests, requiring the agencies to take corrective action, and revisit contract awards or amend their bidding processes, Golden said.

Protests are most often filed by smaller contractors, said Richard B. Oliver , a Los Angeles lawyer specializing in government contracting. "When you're dealing with the Boeings, the Lockheeds, or the Raytheons of the world, they're very careful about filing protests and only do so when they feel they have a very strong case."

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.