Leidos clears protest hurdle to secure $4B Energy recompete

Leidos can now officially celebrate clearing the second of two of its largest recompete hurdles but it still awaits the outcome of another major contract that represented a takeaway win.

The Government Accountability Office on Wednesday denied a bid protest by a Huntington Ingalls Industries subsidiary against the Energy Department’s award of a $4 billion nuclear site restoration contract to a Leidos-led joint venture in December.

GAO’s ruling is sealed under a protective order while the companies and DOE work out details to be released in a public document, usually within a few weeks. DOE said at the time of award that there were three bidders.

This latest GAO decision comes nearly three weeks after Leidos received a favorable ruling for its other large recompete: the $6.5 billion Defense Information Systems Agency contract to manage the backbone network that runs the military’s command-and-control networks.

Work on the DOE and DISA contracts added up to 8 percent of Leidos’ revenue last year at a nearly even split of 4 percent each.

Major award number three for Leidos award is still awaiting a GAO ruling in the $7.7 billion Navy NGEN network services contract, which for now is a takeaway from incumbent Perspecta. Decisions on the protests by Perspecta and the third bidder General Dynamics IT are expected in mid-June.

Hanford Mission Integration Solutions is the new joint venture to take over work at the former Hanford nuclear production site in Washington state and includes as a partner Centerra Group, which co-owns with Leidos the current Mission Support Alliance JV performing work. Parsons Corp. is the third key member of the new venture.

In late March, DOE extended the incumbent contract for an initial six-month period and a potential six-month option that would push the work to May 25, 2021. The new contract calls for a 120-day transition period.