SAIC loses protest fight over $1.4B Army contract it once held
Gettyimages.com/ Yaroslav Kushta
By
Nick Wakeman
GAO denies challenge to CASTLE-NET award, leaving Accenture Federal Services in place to modernize the Corps of Engineers' IT, cybersecurity and information management services.
Science Applications International Corp. has lost its challenge of a $1.4 billion contract that went to Accenture Federal Services.
Accenture won the Cyber, Automation, Systems, Technology and Lifecycle Enterprise Network contract as a task order in January under GSA’s Alliant 2 vehicle.
The contract, known as CASTLE-NET, is a five-year effort to modernize the Army Corps of Engineers IT, cybersecurity and information management services.
SAIC was the incumbent under a task order known as the Revolutionary Information Technology Services task order, which it won in 2021. RITS provided IT support for 37,000 users in 43 geographic districts and 1,500 field and project offices around the world.
After Accenture bested five other bidders, including SAIC, SAIC filed its protest at the Government Accountability Office, challenging the agency’s evaluation and best-value tradeoff decision.
But in a May 19 decision, GAO denied the company’s protest, clearing the way for Accenture to begin work on CASTLE-NET. And because this is a task order contract, SAIC cannot escalate its challenge to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which lacks jurisdiction over task order protests.
If all options are exercised, the contract will run through mid-2031, according to USASpending.gov data.