DCS loses latest protest, but the challenges might not be over

The Army’s support contract for soldier protective equipment program has survived a fourth bid protest and the fight might not be over yet.

The Government Accountability Office denied the protest by DCS Corp. in June, as we previously reported.

Now with Tuesday's release of the written decision, more details are available that paint a picture of the up-and-down journey the contract has been on since Amentum first won the work in July 2025.

Amentum won the $251.7 million task order under the Army's Responsive Strategic Sourcing for Services vehicle.

Amentum beat out DCS and MAG Aerospace to provide engineering, quality assurance, acquisition, business management, logistics and administrative support for the program that manages soldier gear like boots, combat uniforms and Ghillie suits.

DCS and MAG protested that first award and the Army took a corrective action, which led GAO to dismiss the protests.

The Army re-awarded the contract to Amentum in January, then DCS and MAG protested again. But this time, DCS uncovered something outside the record – a small business subcontractor that Amentum named in its cost and price proposal was not actually a small business.

That discovery forced the Army to take a second corrective action to reopen the small business and pricing portions of the proposals, which led GAO to dismiss this set of protests.

But the corrective action did not go far enough for DCS, which filed another protest to argue the Army should also reopen technical evaluations and oral presentations. DCS also claimed that the narrow corrective action was designed to hand the award to Amentum.

To bolster its argument, DCS pointed to an internal Army email in which a technical evaluator wrote that “once we have the SETA protest out of the way, this position will transition to the SETA contract with Amentum.”

But GAO did not buy that argument because the evaluator submitted a sworn statement calling the email a hasty misstatement. GAO also noted that the person wasn’t the contracting officer and had no role in shaping the corrective action.

GAO also found DCS’ technical and discussions arguments premature because the Army has not yet made a new award decision. DCS is free to protest again once it does.

Because it was a prior awardee, Amentum was allowed to join the case as an intervenor.

MAG Aerospace also tried to join the protest as an intervenor, but that was denied by GAO. While MAG could file its own protest, it did not meet the requirements to be an intervenor.

With the denial of DCS’s protest, the Army can now proceed with revised proposals on small business participation and pricing and then make a new award decision.

Given the history here, don’t be surprised if we see yet another protest.