The Court of Federal Claims ruled today that the Department of Defense’s procurement of the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) has appropriately followed regulations, and can continue to an award of the contract.
The court case, Oracle America vs The United States and Amazon Web Services, saw Oracle bring claims of unfair selection criteria and allegations of bias against former DoD officials. Oracle alleged that certain DoD officials were working to advantage Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the procurement process, a claim that led AWS to serve as an intervenor in the court case.
The court found that “the contracting officer’s findings that an organizational conflict of interest does not exist and that individual conflicts of interest did not impact the procurement were not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”
AWS reacted to the news by reiterating its desire to win the contract and provide cloud services to DoD.
“AWS, along with our partner community, stands ready to support and serve what’s most important – the DoD’s mission of protecting the security of our country. The DoD deserves access to the best technology in the world and we are unwavering in our support to their mission,” an AWS spokesperson said in a statement.
The ruling allows DoD to proceed with its procurement of JEDI, which is expected to come next month. DoD’s selection criteria has narrowed the bids to AWS and Microsoft.
However, the battle over the contract may not be finished. Oracle could appeal the ruling to the Court of Federal Appeals, and Congress has expressed its own concerns over the contract.