In a sealed opinion issued last week, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thompson Dietz ruled in favor of Virginia-based Akima-Intra Data, which had challenged whether Swift & Staley was suitably sized to win a $160-million Department of Energy landlord services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky.
Swift & Staley on Monday appealed the ruling, handed down March 31 after about a year of arguments in the Claims Court.The Paducah services incumbent, Swift & Staley has been in court trying to overturn the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) ruling that the company was too large to compete for a follow-on DOE landlord services pact. Akima, a rival bidder for this Paducah work, lodged the initial size-suitability protest with SBA.
Most of the documents in the case have been filed under seal, but according to a one-page order dated March 31 and filed alongside the claims court’s sealed judgment, it appeared that the Federal Claims Court accepted the SBA determination that Swift & Staley is too big to qualify for the set-aside contract — something that might lead DOE to recompete or reward the contract.
Meanwhile, DOE last week extended Swift & Staley’s Paducah services contract for another four months, through July. It was the latest in a series of extensions needed to keep a services provider at the former enrichment site during the protest between Akima and the incumbent.
While dated Thursday, the Claims Court’s order and one-page brief appeared only Friday or later on the PACER online court docket. A lawyer for Swift & Staley did not immediately respond to a Monday email and telephone call seeking comment. When reached by phone Monday evening, an attorney for Akima declined comment.
It is possible the court, like the Government Accountability Office and some other federal entities, could issue a public version of its opinion in the near future with certain details considered business secrets by the parties deleted.
Swift & Staley has provided site services from security to record keeping at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant since October 2015 under an existing contract. The current contract is valued at $280 million prior to a four-month, $18-million extension approved by DOE last week. The DOE awarded Swift & Staley a new $160-million contract in December 2020. But rival Akima Intra Data protested the contract award to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and initially won a ruling that Swift & Staley was too large to qualify for the new set-aside contract.
Federal Claims Judge Dietz ordered an SBA panel to revisit the decision in September 2021 and the legal battle has gone back and forth between the federal claims judge and the SBA hearings panel since then.
Incumbent Swift & Staley will make about $18 million under the four-month extension of its Paducah Infrastructure Services contract, according to a federal procurement notice published online last week.
In the Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition document, DOE also said nobody commented on an earlier Feb. 7 notice it published signaling its intention to grant Swift & Staley a stopgap contract extension from April 1 through July 30 while the legal dispute continues.
