Pentagon Cloud-Computing Contract Sought by Amazon Faces New Hurdle
February 19 2019 - 02:05PM
Dow Jones News
By John D. McKinnon and Kate O'Keeffe
WASHINGTON -- Pentagon lawyers filed a new motion Tuesday in the
legal battle over a military cloud-computing contract worth up to
$10 billion, marking a tactical shift that could signal more
trouble for a procurement process which Amazon.com Inc. has been
favored to win.
In a sealed motion, lawyers representing the Defense Department
asked federal judges to stay a lawsuit that Amazon rival Oracle
Corp. filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims alleging the
procurement process had been unfairly skewed to favor Amazon.
While the Pentagon's motives weren't immediately clear, the
request for a stay could eventually lead to further delays or other
hurdles in the procurement process.
The Pentagon told the court its motion wasn't opposed. The lack
of opposition from Oracle suggests the motion could be in line with
that company's interests.
The Oracle suit focuses on an alleged conflict of interest
involving former federal employee Deap Ubhi, who led the
procurement process for the cloud contract through the Joint
Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, known as JEDI. Mr. Ubhi
worked at Amazon both before and after his 2016-2017 stint in the
U.S. government.
Amazon didn't immediately respond to requests for comment, but
in the past the company has said the claims are without merit. Mr.
Ubhi couldn't be reached for comment.
The government had previously defended the procurement process,
but recently indicated in court filings that it would take another
look at conflict of interest claims.
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com and Kate
O'Keeffe at kathryn.okeeffe@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 19, 2019 13:50 ET (18:50 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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