{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0651","record_version":1,"title":"Lawsuit alleges AI hallucinations tainted US Army contract award to Southwest Range Services","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":42.8,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":2.56,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":0,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"e3f5eef45bc8f758ab32c52368a50457b405ae9af5ade3834a3daecf823c7ef4"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":"reviewing bids before a contract award","safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-07-29","incident_class":"hallucination","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"third_party","summary":"A rival bidder, Trax International Corp., alleges that the US Army improperly used an artificial intelligence tool to review bids before awarding a $449 million contract for mission services at White Sands Missile Range to Southwest Range Services LLC. The complaint says hallucinations from the tool created a false appearance that Southwest Range's bid was technically superior and Trax's was weaker. Trax says the Army conceded it assigned its bid a weakness the record did not support, without explaining how the error occurred. Trax filed an unsuccessful protest at the Government Accountability Office before filing a sealed court complaint in May. The complaint asks the Court of Federal Claims to force a new award decision. The Army's position is not reported, and the allegations are unproven.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"minor","harm_class":[],"affected_description":null,"protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/federal-contracting/ai-hallucinations-tainted-armys-missile-test-award-suit-says","publisher":"Bloomberg Law News","date":"2026-07-29","type":"press","title":"AI Errors Tainted Army’s $450 Million Contract Award, Suit Says - Bloomberg Law News","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report"}],"per_field_confidence":{"system.intended_use":"C","event.incident_class":"C","event.detection_method":"C","context.country":"C","impact.severity":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"system.intended_use":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The US Army improperly relied on an artificial intelligence tool to review bids before awarding Southwest Range Services LLC a $449 million US Army contract for mission services at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, a rival bidder says."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The weakness seems to be a “classic AI hallucination, with made-up references” to Trax’s bid that Army evaluators didn’t check, the complaint says."}],"event.detection_method":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The US Army improperly relied on an artificial intelligence tool to review bids before awarding Southwest Range Services LLC a $449 million US Army contract for mission services at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, a rival bidder says."}],"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The US Army improperly relied on an artificial intelligence tool to review bids before awarding Southwest Range Services LLC a $449 million US Army contract for mission services at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, a rival bidder says."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The US Army improperly relied on an artificial intelligence tool to review bids before awarding Southwest Range Services LLC a $449 million US Army contract for mission services at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, a rival bidder says."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The US Army improperly relied on an artificial intelligence tool to review bids before awarding Southwest Range Services LLC a $449 million US Army contract for mission services at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, a rival bidder says."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"The US Court of Federal Claims should force the Army to make a new award decision because hallucinations from the Army’s AI tool erroneously created a false appearance that Southwest Range’s bid was technically superior and Trax International Corp.'s was weaker, the company said in a complaint made pubic Tuesday."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Trax also says the Army conceded that it assigned its bid a weakness that the record didn’t support, but the Army didn’t explain how the error occurred."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Trax, which submitted a $420 million bid, filed an unsuccessful protest at the Government Accountability Office."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"It then filed its court complaint under seal in May."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"Only one source, a press report of a complaint; all incident facts are allegations by the rival bidder Trax and are not confirmed by the Army, which did not comment. No model name, developer, version, harness, tools, or deployment context is stated. No date of occurrence or of the Army's award is given; the complaint date 7/28/26 is recorded as the complaint date, not as a disclosure date. The article date 2026-07-29 was not used as a field value. The Army's cause of the error is not explained in the source, so no root cause is recorded. Judgements made: responsible party set to deployer because the Army used the tool; detection set to third_party because a rival bidder raised it; severity set to minor because the source describes one procurement evaluation, though the affected bidders are third parties; incident class set to hallucination from the complaint's own wording; control I7 marked missing based on the allegation that evaluators did not check the output. The record does not state whether the AI tool was an autonomous agent, so agent_involved and failure_class are left out. No loss amount, records, remediation or harm class is stated, so these are left out. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (Publisher not yet named · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":null,"org_size_band":null,"country":"US","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"narrative":{"steps":[{"step":"doing","text":"The US Army used an artificial intelligence tool to review bids for a mission services contract at White Sands Missile Range before awarding it to Southwest Range Services LLC.","quote":"The US Army improperly relied on an artificial intelligence tool to review bids before awarding Southwest Range Services LLC a $449 million US Army contract for mission services at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, a rival bidder says.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"went_wrong","text":"According to the complaint, the tool produced a made-up weakness in Trax's bid that Army evaluators did not check.","quote":"The weakness seems to be a “classic AI hallucination, with made-up references” to Trax’s bid that Army evaluators didn’t check, the complaint says.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"}],"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://news.bloomberglaw.com/federal-contracting/ai-hallucinations-tainted-armys-missile-test-award-suit-says"]},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"Trax filed an unsuccessful protest at the Government Accountability Office.","quote":"Trax, which submitted a $420 million bid, filed an unsuccessful protest at the Government Accountability Office.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"The complaint in TRAX Int’l Corp. v. United States is dated 7/28/26.","quote":"The case is TRAX Int’l Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cl., No. 26-cv-896, complaint 7/28/26.","source_index":0,"when":"2026-07-28"},{"text":"The complaint was made public on a Tuesday.","quote":"the company said in a complaint made pubic Tuesday.","source_index":0,"when":"Tuesday"}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://news.bloomberglaw.com/federal-contracting/ai-hallucinations-tainted-armys-missile-test-award-suit-says"]}}