Oracle does not have standing to claim it was wronged in the controversial JEDI procurement process because it did not meet the contract requirements, the lawsuit’s presiding judge wrote in a pre-judgement filing July 12.

“Oracle concedes that it could not meet that criteria at the time of proposal submission; we conclude that it cannot demonstrate prejudice as a result of other possible errors in the procurement process,” wrote Judge Eric Bruggink of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

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Throughout the lawsuit process, Oracle also argued that the contracting officer at DoD did not adequately investigate organizational conflict-of-interest claims. The judge said the court did not find that any conflict-of-interest affected the procurement process.

“We conclude as well 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,” Bruggink wrote.

The DoD applauded the court’s decision in a statement and reiterated that several components of the Defense Department are waiting for the JEDI Cloud to be implemented.

“This reaffirms the DOD’s position: the JEDI Cloud procurement process has been conducted as a fair, full and open competition, which the contracting officer and her team executed in compliance with the law," DoD spokeswoman Elissa Smith said. “DOD has an urgent need to get these critical capabilities in place to support the warfighter and we have multiple military services and Combatant Commands waiting on the availability of JEDI.”

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The DoD has said it expects to award the contract in late August. Only Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are finalists for the controversial contract that could be worth $10 billion over 10 years. The Pentagon has also said it plans to migrate 80 percent of its systems over to the JEDI Cloud.

“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," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “The DoD deserves access to the best technology in the world and we are unwavering in our support to their mission.”

Amazon entered the lawsuit on the side of DoD in December after Oracle alleged that former AWS employees in DoD steered the JEDI procurement process in AWS’ favor. Amazon is the only cloud provider in the process that can meet the DoD’s security requirements for the contract, though Microsoft has said that they will meet the security requirements if they win the award.

Microsoft declined to comment.

This filing comes two days after oral arguments were held in the case.

The final judgement will likely come soon.

About Andrew Eversden

Andrew Eversden covers all things defense technology for C4ISRNET. He previously reported on federal IT and cybersecurity for Federal Times and Fifth Domain, and worked as a congressional reporting fellow for the Texas Tribune. He was also a Washington intern for the Durango Herald. Andrew is a graduate of American University.

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