Oracle Makes More Allegations in JEDI Lawsuit

Oracle is not giving up in its legal battle with the Pentagon over its $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, making approximately a dozen new allegations Tuesday in a lengthy filing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

The 125-page amended complaint includes an allegation that adds to an earlier argument Oracle made when it filed the lawsuit in December around improper conflicts of interest. In its new filing, Oracle alleges that Amazon Web Services—one of the leading contenders for the JEDI contract—gave jobs to two Defense Department employees who worked on the JEDI procurement.

According to the allegation, one of the employees, Deap Ubhi, received “significant” job and bonus offers from AWS for shaping the JEDI procurement in a fashion favorable to the cloud giant. The name of the other person who allegedly received an offer from AWS is redacted in the filing.

In its December lawsuit, Oracle flagged Ubhi’s behavior while working for the Defense Digital Service—before he accepted a job with AWS in November 2017—as a conflict of interest that damaged the integrity of contract. In February, Senior Judge Eric Bruggink issued a stay in the case after more information about Ubhi surfaced, and by April, Pentagon investigators concluded that while Ubhi potentially committed ethical violations which they referred to the Defense Department inspector general, he did not improperly influence the contract.

Oracle’s most recent filing claims the contracting officer “irrationally determined that Ubhi’s misconduct did not impact the JEDI acquisition.” The allegations also take issue with gateway criteria the Defense Department decided Oracle’s bid did not meet.

In April, the Pentagon said Oracle and IBM did not meet the contract’s competitive range determination, while bids from Microsoft and AWS moved on. Oracle’s amended complaint also contends the Pentagon violated existing statutes by making JEDI a single award contract, a decision the lawsuit says “lacks a rational basis.”

The court has scheduled oral arguments on July 8. Per Bruggink’s order, the Pentagon cannot award JEDI before July 19.