Judge: Amazon ‘likely to succeed’ on key issue in Pentagon lawsuit

A federal judge said in court documents that Amazon’s protest lawsuit over rival Microsoft being awarded a highly lucrative defense project was “likely to succeed on the merits” of one of its main arguments, The Washington Post reported.

In October, Microsoft was awarded the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract after the Trump administration and other lawmakers intervened on the tech giant’s behalf.

The document provides some insight into how U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith might rule on the case. To the chagrin of Microsoft and the Department of Defense, Campbell-Smith last month halted production on the JEDI cloud system, saying in her decision that the Pentagon erred in how it evaluated prices for competing proposals from the two tech companies.

In a statement to the Post, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Carver said, “We remain focused on getting this critical capability into the hands of our warfighters as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

In a similar vein, a Microsoft spokesperson downplayed the ongoing court proceedings.