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When Congress passed the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act in 1994, it explicitly told federal agencies that they needed to seriously consider whether commercial items would meet the requirements of their acquisition programs before they built new systems from scratch. But the mandate went more than two decades without facing a serious test in court.

Earlier this month, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of Palantir Technologies, saying the Army was “arbitrary and capricious” when it excluded commercial offerings from a procurement for its Distributed Common Ground System. Joe Petrillo is a procurement attorney with the firm Petrillo and Powell. He joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin and said the ruling is a big deal which may pave the way for more protests from commercial vendors.

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