CACI loses court case to re-enter $7.9B Army tech hardware competition
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By
Nick Wakeman
The company has now been rebuffed twice in its attempts to regain eligibility for the Common Hardware Systems-6 contract.
Full details are not available yet, but CACI International has lost its newest bid to get back into the running for a $7.9 billion Army hardware contract held by longtime incumbent General Dynamics.
CACI first filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office after being eliminated from the competition in October 2022 because of an alleged organizational conflict-of-interest.
The company worked with a consultant who was a former Army official and source selection advisory council chair involved in an earlier iteration of the Army Common Hardware Systems contract.
The Government Accountability Office ruled that there was a conflict despite CACI’s mitigation steps and reassurances. GAO said CACI lacked adequate OCI mitigation processes, therefore the company is ineligible for the work.
Reston, Virginia-headquartered CACI took the next step and filed a protest with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in March. In its complaint to the court, CACI claimed it never had a chance to fully defend itself.
The court ruled against CACI on July 5, a move that now frees the Army to move on an award of the sixth version of the Common Hardware Systems contract. This is an IT hardware supply contract that General Dynamics' mission systems business unit has held for several years.
For the CHS-6 competition, Mission Systems has given way to its sibling organization in General Dynamics Information Technology to be the lead.
The Army uses the CHS contract to buy commercial IT products and services for multi-domain networks and to support the U.S. military's Joint All-Domain Command and Control construct known as JADC2. The Army wants to improve interoperability and lower costs over the life of its IT equipment.
An award could come by the end of the summer with multiple companies in the running.
We’ll continue to watch for a release of a public version of the court’s decision, which will show in more detail what CACI argued and where it fell short with the court.