A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the DoD from labeling Anthropic a supply-chain risk, calling the designation likely unlawful.
Federal Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco granted Anthropic a preliminary injunction against the Department of Defense's (self-styled 'Department of War') supply-chain-risk designation. The judge ruled the designation was 'likely both contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious,' citing no legitimate basis to treat Anthropic's usage restrictions as evidence of sabotage intent. The DoD had been pulling Claude from federal use after disputes over Anthropic's insistence on usage restrictions the Trump administration deemed unnecessary. A second Anthropic lawsuit on a separate statutory basis is still pending in Washington, DC.
If you're building on Claude APIs for government-adjacent or compliance-heavy enterprise clients, the reputational damage that's been chilling procurement discussions just took a legal hit. The injunction doesn't restore full federal access yet, but it signals the designation was legally shaky — reducing the contractual risk of referencing Claude in government-facing proposals. A second lawsuit remains unresolved, so API continuity for federal use cases is still not guaranteed.
If you paused a Claude API integration for a government or regulated-industry client due to the DoD controversy, pull up the injunction ruling this week and share it with your legal or compliance contact to unblock the procurement review.
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