(a) This part sets forth policies and procedures you must follow when you submit a demand or request to an employee of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to produce official records and information, or provide testimony relating to official information, in connection with a legal proceeding. You must comply with these requirements when you request the release or disclosure of official records and information.

(b) OPM intends these provisions to:

(1) Promote economy and efficiency in its programs and operations;

(2) Minimize the possibility of involving OPM in controversial issues not related to our functions;

(3) Prevent the misuse of OPM employees as involuntary expert witnesses for private interests or as inappropriate expert witnesses as to the state of the law;

(4) Maintain OPM's impartiality among private litigants where neither OPM nor any other Federal entity is a named party; and

(5) Protect sensitive, confidential information and the deliberative processes of OPM.

(c) In providing for these requirements, OPM does not waive the sovereign immunity of the United States.

(d) This part provides guidance for the internal operations of OPM. It does not create any right or benefits, substantive or procedural, that a party may rely upon in any legal proceeding against the United States.