Amazon files agency-level protest with Pentagon over JEDI cloud changes

By Justin Doubleday / May 8, 2020 at 12:34 PM

(Editor's Note: This has been updated to include a statement from a DOD spokesman.)

Amazon Web Services this week filed an agency-level protest directly with the Defense Department over changes DOD is making to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract solicitation.

AWS is already suing the Pentagon in federal court over its decision to award the potential 10-year, $10 billion JEDI contract to Microsoft Azure last fall. That case is on hold, as the federal judge is allowing DOD to amend the JEDI solicitation to address potential errors identified as part of Amazon's lawsuit.

But Amazon says it hasn't gotten enough information about DOD's planned amendments, leading it to file the agency-level protest this week.

"AWS is committed to ensuring it receives a fair and objective review on an award decision that the Court found to be flawed," an Amazon spokesman wrote in an email. "AWS repeatedly sought clarity from the DOD around ambiguous aspects of the amended solicitation and the DOD refused to answer our questions. We simply want to ensure a common understanding of the DOD's requirements and eliminate ambiguity that could impact a fair evaluation."

"DOD continues to execute the procedures outlined in the Motion for Voluntary Remand granted last month with the intent of delivering this critically-needed capability to our warfighters as quickly as possible," DOD spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Carver said in a statement regarding Amazon's latest protest.

"The DOD responded to all relevant questions that were submitted by offerors during the established [Request for Proposal] Questions and Answers time period," Carver told Inside Defense in a follow-up email.

An agency-level protest is filed directly with the procuring agency, as opposed to the Government Accountability Office or the Court of Federal Claims. Agencies are required by federal procurement laws to "provide for inexpensive, informal, procedurally simple, and expeditious resolution of protests," according to the Congressional Research Service.

Specifically, AWS is seeking more information about cloud storage pricing scenarios that DOD modified as part of the amended solicitation, according to the Amazon spokesman.

The judge in the federal court case found DOD likely erred in its evaluation of the cloud storage solutions offered by AWS and Microsoft, respectively.

Meanwhile, Microsoft fired shots at Amazon over the latest challenge in a blog posted to the company's website.

"We received notice on Tuesday that Amazon has filed yet another protest -- this time, out of view of the public and directly with the DOD -- about their losing bid for the JEDI cloud contract," Microsoft Vice President for Corporate Communications Frank Shaw wrote in the blog. "Amazon's complaint is confidential, so we don't know what it says. However, if their latest complaint mirrors the arguments Amazon made in court, it's likely yet another attempt to force a re-do because they bid high and lost the first time."

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