Sierra Nevada Corp. filed a motion Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims asking for judicial review of the Air Force-ordered Commander Directed Investigation (CDI) into the February cancellation of the Light Air Support (LAS) contract, according to a company statement.
Sierra Nevada’s motion seeks court review of Part 1 of the CDI to allow the judge to have all the relevant facts available to make a “fair and expedious” decision on the way forward in the lawsuit, the statement said.
“We believe it is important to the goals of transparency, a fair and open competition and the integrity of the process that the court now review the results of the Air Force investigation and actions, including determining whether the agency’s proposed corrective actions were justified and reasonable,” Taco Gilbert, Sierra Nevada vice president of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance business development, said in that statement. “The results of the CDI, after all, speak to the very core of the litigation brought by Hawker Beechcraft.”
The Air Force said Part 1 was completed April 5 and the results of the CDI would not be made public due to sensitive information. Part 1 focused solely on the execution and the source selection processes and procedures of the original LAS contract (Defense Daily, April 16).
The Air Force canceled Sierra Nevada’s $355 million LAS contract to provide Afghanistan with 20 of Brazilian manufacturer Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano turboprop aircraft after the service’s acquisition executive, David Van Buren, was dissatisfied with the source selection documentation. The service then ordered the CDI and announced it would re-open the competition to include Hawker Beechcraft, an original bidder in the LAS competition.
Hawker Beechcraft sued the Air Force in December after being disqualified from the LAS competition with its AT-6 aircraft for not having its proposal in the “competitive range.” Hawker Beechcraft protested the decision with the Government Accountability Office, but the case was dismissed on the grounds the company didn’t file a timely protest request (Defense Daily, Feb. 29).
The company then filed a lawsuit in the Court of Federal Claims seeking to block execution of the contract on the basis of the Air Force “being unresponsive to a request for an explanation as to how it lost.” This move prompted the Air Force to order Sierra Nevada on Jan. 4 to stop work until the dispute was resolved (Defense Daily, Jan. 6).