As prescribed in 315.209, the Contracting Officer shall insert the following paragraph (e) in the provision in FAR 52.215-1, Instructions to Offerors-Competitive Acquisition:
(e) Restriction on disclosure and use of data.
(1) The proposal submitted in response to this request may contain data (trade secrets; business data (e.g., commercial information, financial information, cost and pricing data); and technical data) which the offeror, including its prospective subcontractor(s), does not want used or disclosed for any purpose other than for evaluation of the proposal. The use and disclosure of any data may be so restricted; provided, that the Government determines that the data is not required to be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, as amended, and the offeror marks the cover sheet of the proposal with the following statements, specifying the particular portions of the proposal which are to be restricted:
“Unless disclosure is required by the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, as amended, (the Act) as determined by Freedom of Information (FOI) officials of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), data contained in the portions of this proposal which the offeror has specifically identified by page number, paragraph, etc. as containing restricted information shall not be used or disclosed except for evaluation purposes.
The offeror acknowledges that HHS may not be able to withhold a record (e.g., data, document, etc. ) nor deny access to a record requested pursuant to the Act and that the HHS' FOI officials must make that determination. The offeror hereby agrees that the Government is not liable for disclosure if HHS has determined that disclosure is required by the Act.
If a contract is awarded to the offeror as a result of, or in connection with, the submission of this proposal, the Government shall have the right to use or disclose the data to the extent provided in the contract. Proposals not resulting in a contract remain subject to the Act.
The offeror also agrees that the Government is not liable for disclosure or use of unmarked data and may use or disclose the data for any purpose, including the release of the information pursuant to requests under the Act. The data subject to this restriction are contained in pages (insert page numbers, paragraph designations, etc. or other identification).”
(2) In addition, the offeror must mark each page of data it wishes to restrict with the following statement
“Use or disclosure of data contained on this page is subject to the restriction on the cover sheet of this proposal or quotation.”
(3) Offerors are cautioned that proposals submitted with restrictive statements or statements differing in substance from those cited above may not be considered for award. The Government reserves the right to reject any proposal submitted with nonconforming statement(s).
