Appeals Court Lets the Pentagon Designate Anthropic a Supply Chain Risk

Anthropic lost a legal battle to overturn one of the supply-chain risk labels that the US Department of Defense slapped on the company, as a federal appeals court in DC on Friday refused to second-guess the Trump administration.

“The department had ample support for its conclusion that the continued integration of Claude into the department’s information systems, by the department or its contractors, presented a statutorily covered national-security risk,” the judges wrote in a majority opinion. “As Anthropic admits, the company encodes restrictions into Claude that prevent the model from performing tasks that Anthropic wishes to prevent.”

Anthropic spokesperson Danielle Cohen says the company remains confident in its position and is considering all options. That could include appealing to a broader panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals or the US Supreme Court.