Second NSA Groundbreaker contract gets hit with protest

We know a little -- make that very little -- about the National Security Agency’s recompete of the multi-billion dollar Groundbreaker IT infrastructure contract held by CSRA.

We know that for the recompete the NSA has broken the old contract into three new ones. And thanks to a CSRA financial filing, we know that CSRA won one of the three for up to $2.4 billion.

Now comes a bid protest from DXC Technology and the Government Accountability Office tells us that an award on a second contract went to AT&T.

None of the companies involved are responding to requests for comments, so we don’t know what the grounds of the protest are or the value of the award to AT&T.

There don’t appear to be any protests involving CSRA’s contract award, so that seems to be in the clear for them.

An award on the third contract is still pending.

According to a report by the Wall Street investment firm Cowen and Co., CSRA won the largest of the three Groundbreaker portions and it represents 5 percent of the company’s revenue.

The other two contracts represent 1 percent each and CSRA is a subcontractor to DXC. It is unclear if CSRA is a sub on the third contract.

Often with bid protests, a stay is placed on the work so the agency cannot move forward with the new award until the protest is resolved.

In this case, we know the NSA cannot begin transitioning work to AT&T until the DXC protest is resolved.

But I’m not sure if there is any impact on the transition to CSRA’s new award.

However, that is probably a moot point because even if the NSA cannot move the work to the new CSRA contract, work will continue on the old contract held by CSRA since 2001.

So revenue-wise there is no adverse impact on CSRA.