giving some context to this case which involves financial management software this is a type of software that used by all federal agencies to essentially manage the entire cycle of receipts and disbursements and includes tracking their funded budget dollars to their expenditures and the ability to create financial statements and savannah dietrich is one of only a handful of providers of this type of software generally competing against large commercial enterprises and savannah just in providing an servicing its software for the department of homeland right and so the issues that were here today are directly on point with that the first one being that the trial court's jurisdiction and the jurisdiction issue that we've got is that certain gear just components  and essentially the court took the position that our allegations in relation to this were only alleging arbitrary capricious action and not violations of law but if you look at the substance of what we've argued it's that the agency's interpretations of this memorandum are in violation of the law and with named three statutes these were in our complaint these were in our briefs and these were in our all arguments we believe the court misconstrue i understand that's true jurisdictional questions that it should clarify one of the defendants raced on a lot of people which was the jurisdiction of the court in the first place to consider this issue and also back to back up to that point and we believe  as beginning with the process of determining a name and here as you distribute solutions these d h as components from reached out to commercial vendors to determine a need for the trial court found that that is true and so the trial court found there was jurisdiction in the first place consistent with the holding of distributed solutions like putting that question aside to the problem is is that you know even if we accept the proposition that the memo misinterpreted certain statutes or regulations the memo itself while it ultimately was served getting down the road toward for karen wasn't in connection with a particular  license i agree but we're not challenging the only memorandum is a statement policy and we're not challenging the only member end of that we certainly would not intend to do what we're challenging is the fact that these three v h s components made preacherman decisions based on their interpretations of that memorandum and in doing so they did essentially interpret that only memorandum as allowing them to circumvent the competition in contract and act the economy act and the government manage a reform act each of which has substance requirements that tire the agency when it's making a choice the choice is between using an interagency agreement under the economy act or choices between using a federal shared service provider as and the government as reforming or choices using a sole source for germany as in secret each of those laws were has has requirements to the agency has to abide by jurisdiction kick in so you're saying that kicks in the minute and an official release this memorandum and interprets it is it whenever the agency reaches out to the commercial market to assist in determining a i think that would be a problem understanding as opposed to jurisdiction in whatever it is it's a fundamental question is it not it is but here savannah's responded to the are fi and the agency found in the commercial market could meet its ne follow three laws in particular to kick up this new contract act the government reform act and the economy act and those strategies to give an example the economy act requires before using an interagency agreement that the agency determine the services and goods cannot be acquired as the language of the statute here at thirty one us c fifteen thirty five is by contract as convenient lever cheaply by a commercial enterprise so the answer to my question prohibited unless they make that determination as well as the other determinations under the law yes how do you deal though with that court of federal claims analysis that said was to identify possible available sources able to provide a financial management system software as a service to include all hardware software system operation and maintenance for support for the financial for chairman asset acquisition management domains of the u s coast guard  goes on to state specific information that it wants from respondents to two that are fired so by virtue of that process it did initiate the process of proposed for current and that's what the trial court found and why founders fiction that we did allege that the government as a reform act economy act and the competition in contracting x the requirements are circumvented by the agency's reliance on this only memorandum to avoid competition to avoid the commercial market so that choice is made to avoid the commercial market after starting the process with the commercial market it made a choice to avoid the commercial market in doing so they never did the terminations that were required under either of those any of those three last and that's where the violation of law in connection with the proposed for chairman happens to tie it back to the tucker the competition and contracting out violation where there perspectively got a sole source solution by virtue of you know reaching out to the federal cert service provider who is entirely reliant on the oracle software and boundaries well i say i don't think the boundary has to be whenever the agency reaches out to the commercial market and not just not just in our fight to a federal shared service provider which they did that it should request an engaged in market research with them as well but whenever they vanished they've initiate that contact with the commercial market to determine its needs which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do of course to compare the commercial market to what the the federal service provider is offering but once they've done that that's when these statutes kick and to form of requirements new studies are in place to prevent agencies from abusing interagency agreements obviously that's what the economy tax purposes the competition in contracting out is in place to prevent abuses in regards to competition issues and the government or the format is has regulation has rules  statute because it is a very unique arrangement to have these federal shared service providers you know in large ways competing with or providing services and products from the commercial market and so these statutes are put protections in place to complied with the statutes that are part of that next faces so if they want to abandon the process altogether and do nothing if they want to to if they dispense they reach out to the commercial market and they find th in interagency agreement then they've got to comply with economy active if the next step is after they've made that decision to do an agency agreement and they necessarily must comply with the economy and if the next step is to use a franchise fine they must comply with the interior business center those are federal employees do you know i d c and turn hires commercial partners to help them with their process but the entity that is providing the services to the t h s components is court's decision what the modernization of financial management services is the actual doing of the management service the actual work of course involves working on software but this isn't a simple software purchase driver just want to clarify solutions not distributed solutions is a very unique case the court in this court found that jurisdiction is to be solutions where the agency is issued in our fi soft information regarding commercial software packages you receive the information from vendors consider them in scoping their own requirements for eight of these new requirements and then handing them off to a private contractor instructing that five hundred cartridges then conduct a sub contractor board was used to craft requirements it was checking to comply with the o m b circulars whether or not the commercial market could actually supply the stuff as well as the federal cherry service providers so there's a distinction right there goes along with that the interested parties standing it suffers from we believe the same situation where this court has to find interested parties to mean a to be equivalent offering but did not actually take a look at the secret definition it is required to find whether there is an interested party in the language that we point out that ignored in our briefing is with respect to a contract or solicitation or requests for other offers describing to a statute or regulation even before this court in this reply be some pages in eighteen or nineteen savannah still makes this argument saying that there is secret by going in powers to another part of the government whether that was done at that point or by interpretating the interpretational member leading to that isn't the actual final agency action by the government it's the to move to the federal share and service provider why they did it  thank think of the government's position here is that they've created such a unique procurement that it's unchallengable in court but it's not that you think it is just like what happened to distribute solutions there was in our  provider instead and this is this concept that the other two agencies didn't do the same degree these three agencies were working in tandem and as as the defendant know it's t s a and indio or ultimately getting it through coast detail in that respect the record is littered with these determinations that the agencies did alternatives analyses and business cases where they relied expressly on that data from the commercial market to help shape where they were going with this  point i'd like to make on the issue of the interested parties where is where they say that the f d a decision somehow precludes standing in this case whenever the court in a f g went back to the competition and contracting  definitions of interested party that definition was from one thousand nine hundred four and that definition prescribe the jurisdiction as to the comptroller general overbid protests in one thousand nine hundred six that's when the administrative dispute resolution act came across up and compared the technical capabilities and the cost of the commercial market was offering us compared to what the s s p was offering which was really just ultimately one commercial vendor that they were engaged with at that point calling it an  and so to to do i think judge newman's point that at the point when they were making the decision there was one f s s p that was on the table that they were comparing to the commercial market that one f s b provided workable software they knew that there was an conceivably happen to change the result or what would happen to change the result is that the agencies would have to do a real comparison so here they engage with our five and what that process met with use that term a lot  it is they were not industry and said that we're looking to do this we want to procure this type of system in this type of way here's a list of some thirty requirements that we need to have met and they proposed to us what type of stuff that you have on it's called a rough order of comparisons the agency wasn't comparing apples and apples exist he was comparing what the s s p was offering through oracle to what seven other vendors came up with as possible solutions and then selected based on the only memorandum the fs s p without ever giving them a common set of requirements to look at and so what we want would be just a common set of requirements that so vantage the commercial market could bid to to to make these comparisons that are required by the statute  required by three statutes and those those requirements got pushed by the wayside whenever and getting to the prejudice issue whatever the trial court said yes there's not a secret justification but i'll just make one for the agency and she ignore all of the arguments we had in relation to the rationality of the inputs that seek a justification that justification requires a statutory authority she just found that they had referred to the economy act and she didn't assess whether the economy act w she the nature of any qualifications is another one of those elements under there she didn't assess whether any of that was met in substantive point even though our briefs had attacked all of those different issues thank you this was a common set of requirements to which they could bit so the answer to your question was give us a competition that's the only thing that's abanet believes is required by the law the only thing the government can do here it's wrong w