Days after requesting the testimony of the President and the Secretary of Defense, Amazon has won a preliminary injunction preventing the Department of Defense from moving forward with the implementation of the contract. Judge Patricia E. Campbell-Smith of the Court of Federal Claims authored the opinion, which remains under seal.
The contract, which concerns the military’s next-generation cloud computing architecture, was awarded to Microsoft in 2019. Amazon was widely considered to be the favorite for the award. Reports quickly emerged alleging an anti-Amazon bias originating from the White House, and Amazon filed suit.
In its motion for a temporary injunction, Amazon argued that the Department of Defense had committed several “egregious” errors and discrepancies in evaluating the bidders, undermining Amazon to the benefit of Microsoft. Because of these errors, Amazon concluded that it was likely to succeed on the merits of the case. Amazon also argued that it will face immediate irreparable harm if the JEDI implementation continues and that the public interest favors an injunction.
Attorneys from Morrison & Forester and Gibson Dunn authored the motion. As part of the order granting the restraining order, Amazon was ordered to provide $42 million in security ” for the payment of such costs and damages as may be incurred or suffered in the event that future proceedings prove that this injunction was issued wrongfully.”
