Oracle appeals ruling over $10B Pentagon cloud contract

Oracle Corp. on Tuesday filed an appeal to a federal claims court ruling that found the cloud-computing company does not have standing to contest a $10 billion Department of Defense (DOD) contract that will likely go to either Amazon or Microsoft.

The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract has been the subject of intense lobbying efforts in Washington by Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft, and many Republicans have alleged that the bidding war was biased in favor of Amazon from the start.

Oracle sued, arguing that the Pentagon crafted the contract specifically with Amazon in mind and that the process was rife with conflicts of interest.

But last month a judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims said Oracle could not “demonstrate prejudice” against itself.

Dorian Daley, the general counsel for Oracle, released a statement on Tuesday announcing that the company would challenge that ruling.

“The Court of Federal Claims opinion in the JEDI bid protest describes the JEDI procurement as unlawful, notwithstanding dismissal of the protest solely on the legal technicality of Oracle’s purported lack of standing,” Daley said.