Oracle is trying to push on with its lawsuit against the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract - even though the Department of Defense has canceled JEDI, and replaced it with a contract for which Oracle cannot pitch.

The $10 billion JEDI contract, for a single-supplier cloud-based service for the US military, was awarded to Microsoft in 2019. After lawsuits from both AWS and Oracle claimed flaws in the procurement process, the DoD canceled JEDI, replacing it with a new Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) plan. Oracle is pushing on with its JEDI lawsuit, despite the change of projects at DoD, claiming the alleged misconduct is still relevant - and that JWCC suffers from the same issues.

Oracle still hopes to make its point

In July the DoD canceled the contract to avoid dragging out legal battles further, and said it would be replaced with the new Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC), which only Microsoft and AWS would able to vie for and would likely be jointly awarded.

After the announcement, the Government filed for a petition for a writ of certiorari and render Oracle's case moot. Oracle has argued the case should remain ongoing until it is sure the JWWC contract is free from what the company perceived as misconduct during procurement.

“Cases do not become moot simply because a defendant issues a press release claiming to have ceased its misconduct,” the company stated in a document.

The Government has argued the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract makes Oracle’s JEDI case moot, especially as it is being given to ‘multiple parties’. Oracle argued, however, that as the Government has already said only Microsoft and AWS are eligible without setting out the qualifying parameters, and therefore continues to prejudice the company.

“Far from making it “absolutely clear” that the challenged misconduct will not recur, the Department essentially admits the challenged misconduct will continue—and will continue to prejudice Oracle.”

The company wants to keep the case going until it can establish that “JWCC does not simply reproduce JEDI’s legal infirmities under a new name”, and also argued that if it issued a fresh legal challenge over JWWC, the procurement process might be finished before the court can hear the case.

“Putting aside the troubling timing of the Defense Department’s decision to cancel JEDI," the government has not met its burden to establish that the procurement of cloud services is now free of unlawful, competition-stifling limitations, or that Oracle will be allowed to compete for JWCC on the level playing field that Congress envisioned.”