Judge's ruling on Army program could have wide effect on DoD acquisition

A federal judge has issued an injunction against the U.S. Army in a preliminary ruling that finds the service may have violated a 1994 law that requires the government to give preference to commercial products, before letting expensive contracts for the development and production of new technologies.

The decision was a victory for Palantir Technologies, Inc., a technology firm that sued the Army complaining it could not sell software to the service, because the Army refused to abide by the legal requirement to procure commercial products to the maximum extent practical.