Vendor Sues MOX Services for $17.4 Million
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility contractor is being sued for $17.4 million for breach of contract by a vendor tasked with building gloveboxes for the plant. Washington Government Environmental Services Company, LLC, a subsidiary of URS Energy and Construction, filed the complaint this week against Shaw AREVA MOX Services in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina. "According to the subcontract between WGES and MOX, the gloveboxes were to be built according to MOX’s detailed design drawings and specifications without significant changes or additional engineering effort. WGES’s work was a "build-to-print" project," the complaint states. "MOX’s design documents contained numerous errors, omissions, and inconsistencies. MOX issued hundreds of corrections and changes to the design during WGES’s performance. The design errors and changes resulted in WGES being unable to perform on a build to print basis, and increased WGES’s costs of performance by more than $14 million."
WGES submitted a settlement proposal in May 2013 for the $17.4 million, according to the complaint. "MOX has recognized WGES’s entitlement to recover the additional costs arising from MOX’s design errors and changes. Nevertheless, MOX terminated WGES’s subcontract and has refused WGES’s demand for payment," it states. Vendor cost increases has been one issue faced by the major nuclear project building a first-of-a-kind plant. A MOX Services spokesman said late this week that the company has not yet been served with the complaint. The Court has posted a summons for MOX Services filed June 2.
