Accenture Federal makes its argument to defend $1B Army win

Every story has more than one side and now we have insights into Accenture Federal Services’ version of the battle for a potential $1 billion contract to modernize certain business systems for the Army.

Accenture Federal and Groundswell have been competing for the Army Enterprise Business Systems-Convergence contract, under which the Army used a multi-step Other Transaction Authority process for the competition.

Under the EBS-C project, the Army wants to consolidate five systems onto a single SAP-based cloud platform.

The Army picked Accenture Federal and Groundswell went to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in November with allegations of unequal treatment. Groundswell is also arguing the Army changed the rules to favor Accenture.

Groundswell filed its lawsuit in November, but it was not until late March that redacted versions of Accenture Federal’s filings were publicly released.

Not surprisingly, the Army and Accenture push back against Groundswell’s position. They deride Groundswell’s claim that the Army was biased in Accenture’s favor as a “conspiracy theory.”

The competition had multiple steps and Accenture Federal was chosen for the award after Step Seven. Groundswell argues the process was unfair in steps four through six, but the Army and Accenture Federal claim Groundswell should have raised its issues then because each step was like a competition.

The Army and Accenture Federal also argue that nothing in the record of the evaluations supports Groundswell’s claims. The Army and Accenture Federal also said that a consultant brought in by Groundswell offered no value, and neither were statements by Groundswell executives.

“[Groundswell] asks the Court to replace the Agency’s well documented technical analyses and rationally exercised technical judgments with the self-serving statements of its own personnel and its hired gun,” Accenture wrote in its filing.

One of Groundswell’s more serious allegations is that the Army allowed Accenture to “fake” the demonstration that was required in step four. Groundswell said it reported its suspicions about the demo to the Army at the time.

Accenture Federal argues in its filing that the time has passed for Groundswell to raise the argument "regardless of the merits of the faked demonstration claim [there are none]."

Judge Richard Hertling heard oral arguments on April 1 and the Army, Accenture and Groundswell have all filed supplemental briefs since then. All the briefs are sealed currently.

There is no schedule for when the judge will issue a ruling or if more oral arguments will be heard.