The Department of Energy will not revoke until August a disputed landlord services contract that could keep Swift & Staley at the Paducah Site in 2027 — but the agency also will not slow down plans to recompete or reward the work, which the incumbent is fighting in court to keep.
That was the news out of a telephone status conference Tuesday with U.S. Federal Claims Court Judge Thompson Dietz. Swift & Staley is the incumbent landlord contractor at Paducah under a deal that started in 2015 and is now worth almost $300 million, thanks for a series of extensions DOE awarded while the company and a rival bidder fought over a follow-on Paducah services contract DOE gave Swift & Staley in December 2020.
Since then, Swift & Staley and rival bidder Akima-Intra Data have butted heads over the deal, first before the Small Business Administration (SBA), which in 2021 ruled Swift & Staley too large to qualify for the small-business set-aside at Paducah, then in the Court of Federal Claims, which last week agreed with SBA’s decision.
On Tuesday, Dietz also agreed to expedite consideration of Swift & Staley’s motion for a stay and injunction to block last week’s sealed ruling in favor of SBA and Akima, which intervened in the Claims Court case. SBA and Akima did not oppose the motion and plan to file their responses to the motion by April 11. Swift & Staley will file its brief by April 15.
Shortly after Judge Dietz ruled in favor of the Akima and SBA arguments on March 31, Swift & Staley filed a notice saying it is taking the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
