Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Microsoft's Pentagon Cloud Contract

(RTTNews) - A federal judge Thursday ordered a temporary block on Microsoft's JEDI cloud contract, the multibillion-dollar contract from Pentagon, in response to a suit filed by Amazon (AMZN).

The contents of the decision, issued by Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith in the US Court of Federal Claims, are under seal.

The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, cloud computing contract is to help improve Pentagon's IT operations. The contract is worth up to $10 billion. Microsoft was awarded the contract on October 25.

Amazon had alleged that President Trump influenced the Defense Department's decision as the competing bids from Microsoft and Amazon for the cloud computing project were considered. Amazon claim that the President denied Amazon the contract out of a personal differences with CEO Jeff Bezos.

Frank Shaw, Microsoft's corporate vice president of communications, told CNBC in a statement: "While we are disappointed with the additional delay we believe that we will ultimately be able to move forward with the work to make sure those who serve our country can access the new technology they urgently require. We have confidence in the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft."

Earlier this week, Amazon asked the court for permission to gather testimony from President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Defense Secretary James Mattis.