US judge ends Amazon challenge to $10 billion cloud contract after Pentagon cancellation

A U.S. judge on Friday dismissed Amazon.com’s authorized problem to the Protection Division’s 2019 resolution to award a $10 billion JEDI cloud-computing venture to rival Microsoft Corp after the Pentagon cancelled the contract.

Amazon.com had accused then-President Donald Trump, alleging that the previous president exerted improper strain on navy officers to steer the contract away from Amazon. The Pentagon mentioned on Tuesday it anticipated the brand new multi-billion greenback contract could be break up between Amazon and Microsoft.

Amazon didn’t object to dismissing its 2019 lawsuit.

Choose Patricia E. Campbell-Smith of the U.S. Court docket of Federal Claims agreed to dismiss the lawsuit on the authorities’s request, saying the case was now moot.

Trump publicly derided then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and repeatedly criticized the corporate. Amazon had sought to query Trump about his function within the contract resolution.

The Pentagon hopes to have the primary awards by April 2022 for its new Joint Warfighter Cloud Functionality (JWCC).

John Sherman, performing chief data officer for the Protection Division, mentioned on Tuesday he expects each Microsoft and Amazon will get cloud contracts.

Microsoft mentioned in a press release that the corporate was assured it can “proceed to achieve success because the DoD selects companions for brand spanking new work.”

Amazon’s Amazon Net Companies cloud unit mentioned it agreed with the Pentagon’s resolution to cancel the contract. It mentioned the preliminary award was “not based mostly on the deserves of the proposals and as a substitute was the results of exterior affect that has no place in authorities procurement.”

In April, Campbell-Smith refused to dismiss Amazon’s claims alleging the Trump administration interfered within the Pentagon’s award to Microsoft after placing it on maintain indefinitely in February 2020.

The now-canceled Joint Enterprise Protection Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI) contract was budgeted for as a lot as $10 billion and was a part of a broader digital modernization of the Pentagon geared toward making it extra technologically agile.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Enhancing by Dan Grebler)