Akima Intra-Data has protested the Department of Energy’s award of a potential five-year, $135-million contract last month to North Wind for Portsmouth Infrastructure Support Services in Ohio.
The Akima bid protest filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Monday is scheduled to be decided by Jan. 12, according to a notice on the GAO website.
The DOE awarded the contract to North Wind Dynamics last month over three other bidders.
Idaho-based North Wind is the lead partner on the incumbent Portsmouth Mission Alliance joint venture with Swift & Staley. That contract, currently valued at $190 million, is currently scheduled to run through Nov. 22.
The contract is for landlord services that can range from fleet management and road maintenance to telecommunications and cyber security.
Akima has been a hard-charging competitor for contacts of this scope. In late August, a U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge reversed an earlier victory by Virginia-based Akima Intra-Data in its challenge to DOE’s award to Swift & Staley of the landlord services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky.
The court held the Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) of the Small Business Administration (SBA) was wrong when it upheld a local SBA office’s position that Swift & Staley was not small enough to qualify for the set-aside contract at Paducah. The case was sent back to the hearings office for further adjudication in keeping with the court’s ruling.
The DOE has extended Swift & Staley on the Paducah infrastructure services during the dispute with Akima. The Paducah services contract, which started in October 2015 and is now worth $269-million, is currently set to expire Dec. 30, according to the DOE online contracts chart that was updated Monday.
