Claims Court Upholds DHS Cancellation of $10 Billion FirstSource III IT Vehicle, as GAO Questions the Department's $10.5 Billion Savings Claim
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has upheld the Department of Homeland Security's 2025 cancellation of the FirstSource III information technology contract vehicle, rejecting 23 small- business protesters on the merits. In an opinion re-issued in full on October 13, 2026, Judge Edward H. Meyers denied the plaintiffs' motion for judgment on the administrative record and granted the government's cross-motion, also denying the protesters' bid and proposal costs. The case is Westwind Partners, LLP v. United States, No. 24-1504C; the opinion was first filed under seal on September 30 and re-issued after the parties confirmed no redactions were necessary. According to Bloomberg Law, Judge Meyers said President Trump's 2025 federal contracting executive order, EO 14240 — which directed agencies to consolidate domestic procurement of common goods and services under the General Services Administration — did not compel DHS to cancel the roughly $10 billion procurement but provided a rational basis for doing so.
The court did not decide whether the cost-avoidance figure DHS attached to the cancellation was accurate. A Government Accountability Office report released about four weeks earlier, GAO-26-109096, said it was not. GAO found that DHS had reviewed 17,000 contracts early last year and terminated 438, deobligating a net $92 million, while publicly claiming the cancellations could avoid more than $10.5 billion in future costs. GAO said the claim overstates actual costs avoided for two reasons: it represents the maximum that could be obligated under the contracts rather than what would actually have been obligated, and where requirements remain and are met through other contracts, the costs are incurred through those contracts rather than avoided. GAO noted that 95 percent of the claimed $10.5 billion related to 30 terminated indefinite-delivery/indefinite- quantity IT contracts running through fiscal 2034, and that DHS obligated over $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2025 through existing government-wide contracts to meet those same requirements — meaning that $1.7 billion was not avoided but incurred through other contracts. DHS provided no formal comments on GAO's draft report, sending technical comments instead.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国联邦索赔法院入口（华盛顿 Howard T. Markey 国家法院大楼）资料照片。照片：G. Edward Johnson，CC BY 4.0，Wikimedia Commons。File photo: the entrance of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims at the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building in Washington. Photo by G. Edward Johnson, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
