Army's $5B ADMC 3 contract goes deeper into protest quagmire

The Government Accountability Office has removed itself from the protests involving the $5 billion Army Desktop and Mobile Computing 3 contract.

And who can blame them. There are cases pending at the Court of Federal Claims and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

ADMC 3 has been plagued with protests since it was first awarded to nine companies earlier this year. The Army uses the contract to buy hardware, software and related services.

Protests rolled in after the awards with several incumbents filing objections because they weren’t picked this time around. The Army decided to take a corrective action and re-evaluate the awards. But several of the original winners including Dell went to the Court of Federal Claims. Dell was one of two incumbents to win new contracts.

They argued that the Army’s corrective action went too far. The court agreed and issued an injunction. That was in July.

The Army backed away from its original plan but still re-evaluated bids through other actions the court said were reasonable. In the end, the Army again made awards to the original 9 winners.

This unsurprisingly led to another round of protests at GAO but one company in Mercom went directly back to the Court of Federal Claims. The court’s jurisdiction trumps GAO. In light of that, GAO has dismissed the protests of 12 companies:

• CDW-G
• CounterTrade Products
• Telos Corp.
• FedBiz IT Solutions
• Transource Services Corp.
• CredoGv
• C. Technology (doing business as Ace Computers)
• New Tech Solutions Inc.
• HPI Federal LLC
• Koi Computers Inc.
• FCN Inc.
• Integration Technologies Group

J.C. Technology, Telos and CounterTradeProducts have joined Mercom’s lawsuit.

Much of the lawsuit is sealed because the companies claim the documents contain proprietary information such as pricing information and market strategy.

To further complicate things, CDW-G and HPI are appealing the earlier ruling by the Court of Federal Claims to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Army also has joined the appeal.

Dell and other winners of ADMC 3 have joined the case to fight against the appeal.

So far this week, the Court of Federal Claims has stayed the case filed by Mercom and the other companies until the appeals are resolved over the the earlier decision saying that the Army went too far with its corrective action.

In short, it is a mess and the Army is looking at continued delays to the ADMC 3 contract. In fact, the Army is planning to extend the ADMC 2 contract for another six months.

The appeals court wants opening briefs by Nov. 20.