{"id":14293,"date":"2019-02-20T18:14:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T18:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/new-conflict-evidence-surfaces-in-jedi-cloud-contract-procurement-process.html"},"modified":"2019-02-20T18:14:01","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T18:14:01","slug":"new-conflict-evidence-surfaces-in-jedi-cloud-contract-procurement-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/new-conflict-evidence-surfaces-in-jedi-cloud-contract-procurement-process.html","title":{"rendered":"New conflict evidence surfaces in JEDI cloud contract procurement process"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months, the drama has been steady in the Pentagon\u2019s decade long, $10 billion JEDI cloud contract<\/a> procurement process. This week the plot thickened when the DOD reported that it has found new evidence of a possible conflict of interest, and has reopened its internal investigation into the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cDOD can confirm that new information not previously provided to DOD has emerged related to potential conflicts of interest. As a result of this new information, DOD is continuing to investigate these potential conflicts,\u201d Elissa Smith, Department of Defense spokesperson told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear what this new information is about, but the Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> this week that senior federal judge Eric Bruggink of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ordered that the lawsuit filed by Oracle in December<\/a> would be put on hold to allow the DOD to investigate further.<\/p>\n

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Oracle is suing the US government over $10B Pentagon JEDI cloud contract process<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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From the start of the DOD RFP process, there have been complaints that the process itself was designed to favor Amazon, and that were possible conflicts of interest on the part of DOD personnel. The DOD\u2019s position throughout has been that it is an open process and that an investigation found no bearing for the conflict charges. Something forced the department to rethink that position this week.<\/p>\n

Oracle <\/a> in particular has been a vocal critic of the process. Even before the RFP was officially opened, it was claiming that the process unfairly favored Amazon. In the court case, it made the conflict part clearer, claiming that an ex-Amazon employee named Deap Ubhi had influence over the process, a charge that Amazon denied when it joined the case<\/a> to defend itself. Four weeks ago something changed when a single line in a court filing<\/a> suggested that Ubhi\u2019s involvement may have been more problematic than the DOD previously believed.<\/p>\n

At the time, I wrote:<\/p>\n

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In the document, filed with the court on Wednesday, the government\u2019s legal representatives sought to outline its legal arguments in the case. The line that attracted so much attention stated, \u201cNow that Amazon has submitted a proposal, the contracting officer is considering whether Amazon\u2019s re-hiring Mr. Ubhi creates an OCI that cannot be avoided, mitigated, or neutralized.\u201d OCI stands for Organizational Conflict of Interest in DoD lingo.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And Pentagon spokesperson Heather Babb told TechCrunch:<\/p>\n

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\u201cDuring his employment with DDS, Mr. Deap Ubhi recused himself from work related to the JEDI contract. DOD has investigated this issue, and we have determined that Mr. Ubhi complied with all necessary laws and regulations,\u201d Babb told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Whether the new evidence that DOD has found is referring to Ubhi\u2019s rehiring by Amazon or not, is not clear at the moment, but it has clearly found new evidence it wants to explore in this case, and that has been enough to put the Oracle lawsuit on hold.<\/p>\n

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What each cloud company could bring to the Pentagon\u2019s $10 B JEDI cloud contract<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Oracle\u2019s court case is the latest in a series of actions designed to protest the entire JEDI procurement process. The Washington Post reported last spring<\/a> that co-CEO Safra Catz complained directly to the president. The company later filed a formal complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which it lost in November when the department\u2019s investigation<\/a> found no evidence of conflict. It finally made a federal case out of it when it filed suit in federal court in December, accusing the government of an unfair procurement process and a conflict on the part of Ubhi.<\/p>\n

The cloud deal itself is what is at the root of this spectacle. It\u2019s a 10-year contract worth up to $10 billion to handle the DOD\u2019s cloud business \u2014 and it\u2019s a winner-take-all proposition. There are three out clauses, which means it might never reach that number of years or dollars, but it is lucrative enough, and could possibly provide inroads for other government contracts, that every cloud company wants to win this.<\/p>\n

The RFP process closed in October and the final decision on vendor selection is supposed to happen in April. It is unclear whether this latest development will delay that decision.<\/p>\n

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Putting the Pentagon $10B JEDI cloud contract into perspective<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/5HVVSuHSQgs\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For months, the drama has been steady in the Pentagon\u2019s decade long, $10 billion JEDI cloud contract procurement process. This week the plot thickened when the DOD reported that it <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-14293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t