United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

SYSTEM STUDIES & SIMULATION, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant

L3 DOSS AVIATION, INC., Plaintiff

v.

UNITED STATES, CAE USA INC., Defendants-Appellees ______________________

2021-1469 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims in Nos. 1:20-cv-00575-MMS, 1:20-cv-00609-MMS, Senior Judge Margaret M. Sweeney. ______________________

Decided: December 30, 2021 ______________________

WALTER BRAD ENGLISH, Maynard, Cooper & Gale, PC, Huntsville, AL, argued for System Studies & Simulation, Inc. Also represented by EMILY J. CHANCEY, JON DAVIDSON LEVIN; MICHAEL W. RICH, Burr & Forman LLP, Mobile, AL.

EVAN WISSER, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Di- vision, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, argued for United States. Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR., ELIZABETH MARIE Case: 21-1469 Document: 67 Page: 2 Filed: 12/30/2021

2 SYSTEM STUDIES & SIMULATION v. US

HOSFOR; NICHOLAS ANDREW LUCCHETTI, Contract and Fis- cal Law Division, United States Army Legal Service Agency, Fort Belvoir, VA.

ALEXANDER B. GINSBERG, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, McLean, VA, argued for CAE USA Inc. Also represented by JAMES MATTHEW CARTER, KEVIN REZA MASSOUDI, Los Angeles, CA. ______________________

Before NEWMAN, PROST, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges. Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge TARANTO. Circuit Judge NEWMAN dissents without opinion. TARANTO, Circuit Judge. System Studies & Simulation, Inc. (S3), an unsuccess- ful bidder for a government contract, filed a bid-protest ac- tion in the Court of Federal Claims (Claims Court). The Claims Court concluded that the federal contracting agency had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in one aspect of its decision. But the court nevertheless denied S3 relief on the ground that the deficient aspect of the decision did not prejudice S3, in that the contract award would have been the same regardless. System Studies & Simulation, Inc. v. United States, 152 Fed. Cl. 74 (2020) (CFC Opinion); System Studies & Simulation, Inc. v. United States, 152 Fed. Cl. 20 (2020) (Reconsideration Opinion). S3 argues on appeal that there is a presumption of prej- udice whenever the Claims Court determines that the agency acted irrationally in making an award decision. We reject that contention. And we see no clear error in the Claims Court’s determination that there was no prejudice in this case. We therefore affirm. Case: 21-1469 Document: 67 Page: 3 Filed: 12/30/2021

SYSTEM STUDIES & SIMULATION v. US 3

I In 2018, the United States Department of the Army, Mission and Installation Contracting Command (Agency) requested bids to provide the Agency with advanced heli- copter flight training services. In September 2019, the Agency awarded the contract to L3 Doss Aviation, Inc. But in a bid-protest action filed by disappointed bidder S3 un- der 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b), the Claims Court set aside the award. System Studies & Simulation, Inc. v. United States, 146 Fed. Cl. 186, 204 (2019). The Agency then reevaluated the bids, and in May 2020 it awarded the contract to CAE USA Inc. A few days later, S3 filed another bid-protest action in the Claims Court, arguing on numerous grounds that the decision to award the contract to CAE was arbitrary and capricious. The Claims Court rejected most of S3’s arguments, but it agreed with one of them, concerning the assignment by the Agency’s source selection authority (SSA) of a cer