A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Navy to halt execution of a $5-billion indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract for global construction work awarded in July 2021 to six contractors after an unsuccessful bidder, SLS Federal Services, challenged the service for not following federal contracting rules that it claims hurt its competitiveness.

The Naval Facilities Engineering Command “improperly analyzed price reasonableness when it failed to request or evaluate pricing information,” said the ruling by senior federal claims court Judge Eric Bruggink, which was released Jan. 10 after being under seal. The complaint by the firm, a unit of contractor SLSCO Ltd., is still under seal.