The Energy Department has agreed to a $24 million legal settlement with Centrus Energy to resolve breach of contract litigation the company had filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The settlement agreement was reached Jan. 11, and Centrus reported the development on Jan. 17 in an 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The documents indicate DOE will pay Centrus $4.7 million and will forgo its claim its claim to about $19.3 million in credits owed to the government by the company.
The original May 2013 lawsuit sought damages of about $38 million for work done between 2003 and 2011 by the company, then called U.S. Enrichment Corp., or USEC. “USEC and the Government disagreed regarding USEC’s claimed Incurred Cost Adjustments” during the time period, according to the settlement.
The work was done on various contracts with DOE, as well as subcontracts with DOE contractors, according to the SEC filing.
For years USEC managed DOE’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio and Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. The company enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power plants.
“Specifically, at Portsmouth, we were contracted to keep the facility in Cold Standby so it could be restarted if needed, and then later in Cold Shutdown, where we performed pre-D&D [decontamination and decommissioning] work to reduce contamination and otherwise prepare the facility for turnover to the D&D contractor in 2011,” said Centrus spokesman Jeremy Derryberry. As part of the deal, Centrus has also agreed not to seek any additional payments under certain DOE subcontracts.
The settlement does not extend to claims either party might bring in connection with the American Centrifuge Project after September 30, 2017. The settlement also does not extend to Centrus subcontracts with UT-Battelle for work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
