Amazon Challenge for $ 10 billion JEDI cloud contract terminated by US judge after Pentagon cancellation

A U.S. judge on Friday dismissed Amazon.com’s legal challenge to the Defense Department’s 2019 decision to award a $ 10 billion JEDI cloud computing project to competitor Microsoft Corp after the contract was canceled by the Pentagon.

Amazon accused then-President Donald Trump, alleging that the former president improperly pressured military officials to hijack Amazon’s contract. The Pentagon said on Tuesday it expected the new multibillion-dollar contract to be split between Amazon and Microsoft.

Amazon did not object to the dismissal of its 2019 lawsuit.

U.S. Federal Claims Court Judge Patricia E. Campbell-Smith agreed to dismiss the lawsuit at the government’s request, saying the case was now moot.

Trump publicly mocked then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and repeatedly criticized the company. Amazon had sought to question Trump about his role in deciding the contract.

The Pentagon hopes to secure the first prices by April 2022 for its new Joint Warfighter Cloud (JWCC) capability.

John Sherman, acting chief information officer for the Department of Defense, said on Tuesday that he expects Microsoft and Amazon to secure cloud deals.

Microsoft said in a statement that the company is confident it “will continue to be successful as the DoD selects partners for new work.”

Amazon’s Amazon Web Services cloud unit said it agreed with the Pentagon’s decision to cancel the contract. He said the initial award was “not based on the merits of the proposals and rather was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement.”

In April, Campbell-Smith refused to dismiss Amazon’s claims that the Trump administration interfered in the Pentagon’s attribution to Microsoft after it suspended it indefinitely in February 2020.

The now canceled Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI) contract was budgeted for up to $ 10 billion and was part of a larger digital modernization by the Pentagon to make it more technologically agile.

© Thomson Reuters 2021

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