Defense Business Alert

When the Pentagon’s top negotiator told a public meeting last year that a controversial proposal to change the way the Defense Department paid contractors had been approved at the highest levels, the defense industry was worried.

The Defense Department officials who decided to award a multibillion-dollar cloud contract to Microsoft Azure were not influenced by anyone from the White House, including President Trump, according to DOD's top IT official.

Raytheon appears to have missed the window to protest the Army's award to Lockheed Martin of the A4 Sentinel radar upgrade, conceding defeat in the estimated $3 billion project the same week the company won a potentially larger Army radar program, the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor.

A coalition of industry groups is urging the Defense Department, General Services Administration and NASA to revise a federal acquisition rule issued this summer that bans the government from purchasing IT and video surveillance products from China, calling for an "annual certification" process to assist small businesses as well as other steps to make those requirements more specific.

The Small Business Administration's advocacy office is urging the Defense Department to subject its draft cybersecurity certification program to a formal notice-and-comment rulemaking process, warning the complexity and costs of the plan could undermine the Pentagon's contracting goals.

The LOGCAP V battle now being waged in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims won't create a timing problem for Vectrus, which won two spots on the coveted program, according to its chief executive.

Elbit Systems of America, which closed on its purchase of Harris' night vision business over the weekend, said Erik Fox, who has led the business for five years, will remain its chief.

The Justice Department is defending the authority of Congress to ban the government and its contractors from purchasing tech products by China-based companies including Huawei, in urging a federal court to dismiss the company's lawsuit claiming the prohibition to be unconstitutional.

Raytheon last week filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office over a recent contract award to Lockheed Martin for a combat system outfitted on Navy ships.