All sides ask court to dismiss case involving $1B DISA contract
Gettyimages.com/ Zolnierek
By
Nick Wakeman
It is unclear if the Defense Information Systems Agency will stand by its choice of American Systems or restart the competition.
The fight over a $1 billion contract with the Defense Information Systems Agency is no longer in the courts, but the end result remains unclear.
American Systems won the contract for test and evaluation services in early December, several protests followed as we often see. Business Integra and LinQuest were the protesters, while incumbent Jacobs sat on the sidelines in that initial round of challenges.
After a correction action by DISA, American Systems again won the contract for a second time. Jacobs then jumped in with a lawsuit at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which it filed in February. Business Integra later joined that lawsuit.
Their challenges focused on the evaluations and allegations of unfair discussions by DISA, plus a flawed-best value determination.
In April, DISA and all of the companies asked the court to pause the litigation for 180 days so the agency could reconsider the award.
That reconsideration apparently is over because all three companies involved and DISA have asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit “with prejudice." That means the case cannot be brought back to court.
None of the companies have not responded to requests for comment on what the dismissal means or the status of the contract award. One possibility is that DISA is significantly reworking the solicitation to the point that it is starting over.
The others of course are that DISA will make a new award, either again to American Systems or one of the others. We’ll update this post if we hear back from anyone.