Amazon files lawsuit challenging Pentagon's decision to award cloud contract to Microsoft

Amazon has filed a lawsuit challenging US Defence Department's decision to award a USD 10 billion cloud computing contract to rival Microsoft last month.

A spokesperson for Amazon Web Services confirmed the Hill on Friday that the suit was filed in the US Court of Federal Claims under seal. The company did not explain the basis of its complaint.

The suit contains "proprietary information, trade secrets, and confidential financial information" that could "cause either party severe competitive harm," Amazon said in a court document.

The company, which had been considered a front-runner to win the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract, had earlier claimed that the deal was marred by "errors and unmistakeable bias".

The 10-year contract, which is intended to transform and modernise the US military's cloud computing system, is considered significant, owing to its centrality to "new forms of war". Presently, much of the US military operates on computer systems from the 1980s and 1990s.

The Pentagon chose Microsoft's Azure cloud for the job, saying that the company would help improve the "speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy modernised technical capabilities to our men and women in uniform."

The decision had come as a surprise to Amazon, given that the company was considered a front-runner to win the contract, while Microsoft was considered in the lead for other government cloud programmes, including an intelligence contract.

Recently, a book written by the speechwriter for former Defence Secretary James Mattis has claimed that Trump had directed Mattis to "screw Amazon" out of Pentagon's USD 10 billion cloud computing contract.

Trump in the past has voiced his displeasure with Amazon and Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post. He has accused Amazon of taking advantage of the Postal Service even as independent investigations have disagreed with it.

( With inputs from ANI )