A legal dispute over the Department of Energy’s issuance of a landlord services contract for the Paducah Site in Kentucky to Swift & Staley, is apparently still percolating at the Small Business Administration’s Office of Hearings & Appeals.
Late last month, Judge Thompson Dietz of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims granted another party in the case, Akima Intra-Data, relief from an earlier order so it “may access and review the administrative record before this Court only for the purpose of participating in the ongoing proceedings before OHA [the Office of Hearings and Appeals],” according to online court records. Most records in the case are sealed to keep certain business information confidential.
In August, Thompson ruled the Small Business Administration was mistaken when it ruled in May Swift & Staley was too large to qualify for a $160-million set-aside contract at the former gaseous diffusion plant. The judge on Aug. 20 sent the case back to the Office of Hearings and Appeals and told that panel to issue a ruling consistent with the court order within 60 days, which would be about Oct. 19.
“We have nothing new to report,” a spokesperson for the Small Business Administration said by email Thursday afternoon.
The ruling by Judge Dietz was a blow to a Swift & Staley rival Akima Intra-Data, which had argued the Kentucky-based Swift & Staley was too big for the Paducah small-business set-aside, after the latter’s minority stake in a site-services joint venture with North Wind at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio is tabulated.
Swift & Staley successfully argued that as a “populated” joint venture that uses its own employees to do contract work, Portsmouth Mission Alliance receipts need not be calculated in the size requirements for this contract. The Paducah contract work includes road and building maintenance, recordkeeping and telecommunications, and other tasks connected with the routine operation of the complex.
In the meantime, Swift & Staley’s existing contract at Paducah has been extended through the end of the year, according to a DOE document posted online. Swift & Staley started providing site services at Paducah in October 2015, under the current business now valued at $269 million.
