Amazon information lawsuit contesting Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud contract to Microsoft

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc filed a lawsuit in a federal U.S. courtroom on Friday contesting the U.S. Protection Division’s resolution final month to award a Pentagon cloud computing contract value as much as $10 billion to rival bidder Microsoft Corp.

The criticism and supplemental movement for discovery had been filed within the U.S. Court docket of Federal Claims underneath seal, in line with a spokesman for Amazon Net Companies, a division of the net retail big based by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

The corporate didn’t clarify the premise for its criticism.

The filings comprise “proprietary info, commerce secrets and techniques, and confidential monetary info” that might “trigger both get together extreme aggressive hurt,” Amazon stated in a courtroom doc searching for a protecting order.

“The report on this bid protest doubtless will comprise equally delicate info,” it stated.

Final week, U.S. Protection Secretary Mark Esper rejected any suggestion of bias within the Pentagon’s resolution to award Microsoft the contract after Amazon introduced plans to problem it.

“We imagine the information will present they (DoD) ran an in depth, thorough and honest course of in figuring out the wants of the warfighter had been greatest met by Microsoft,” Microsoft stated in an emailed assertion.

Amazon had been thought of a favourite for the Joint Enterprise Protection Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI) contract, a part of a broader digital modernization venture on the Pentagon, earlier than software program developer Microsoft emerged because the shock winner.

Amazon has beforehand stated that politics acquired in the best way of a good bidding course of. Bezos, the chief government officer of Amazon and proprietor of the Washington Submit, has been an outspoken critic of U.S. President Donald Trump.