The human supply chain risk designation was stayed by a judge

Anthropic A won A preliminary injunction prevents the US Department of Defense from designating it as a supply chain risk, which could pave the way for customers to resume doing business with the company. The ruling Thursday by Federal District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco is a symbolic setback for the Pentagon and a major boost for the AI ​​producer as it tries to preserve its business and reputation.

“Defendants’ categorization of Anthropologie as a ‘supply chain risk’ is likely to be unlawful, arbitrary and capricious,” Lane wrote in his justification for interim relief. “The War Department provides no legitimate basis for inferring from Anthropic’s express insistence on restrictions of use that she might become subversive.”

Anthropic and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

The Defense Department, which under Trump calls itself the War Department, has relied on Anthropic’s AI tools to write sensitive documents and analyze classified data over the past two years. But this month, she began stopping Claude after deciding that Anthropic could not be trusted. Pentagon officials cited several instances in which Anthropic allegedly placed or sought to place restrictions on the use of its technology that the Trump administration found unnecessary.

The administration ultimately issued several directives, including designating the company as a supply chain risk, which had the effect of slowly halting the use of CLOUD across the federal government and damaging Anthropic’s sales and public reputation. The company filed two lawsuits challenging the sanctions as unconstitutional. At Tuesday’s hearing, Lin said the government appeared to be illegally “paralyzing” and “punishing” anthropologists.

Lane’s ruling on Thursday “restores the status quo” to February 27, before the guidance was issued. “It does not preclude any defendant from taking any legal action that would have been available to him” on that date, she wrote. “For example, this order does not require the War Department to use Anthropic products or services and does not prevent the War Department from transitioning to other AI providers, so long as such actions are consistent with applicable regulations, laws, and constitutional provisions.”

The ruling notes that the Pentagon and other federal agencies remain free to cancel deals with Anthropic and require contractors that integrate Cloud into their own tools to stop doing so, but without citing a supply chain risk rating as a basis.

The immediate impact is unclear because Lin’s order will not take effect for a week. The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has yet to rule on Anthropic’s second lawsuit, which focuses on a different law under which the company was also barred from providing software to the military.

But Anthropic could use a soft ruling to prove to some clients interested in doing business with a shunned industry that the law might be on its side in the long run. Lin did not set a timetable for issuing a final ruling.