After settlement talks failed to bridge the gap between Department of Energy contractor Leidos and subcontractor Professional Project Services, or Pro2Serve, the parties could be headed toward a federal court trial this summer on the smaller company’s claim it was wrongly cut out of the new landlord services team at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
The parties held a video conference on March 18 to try and broker a settlement, according to a March 24 order filed by U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton, who sits in Virginia’s Eastern District. “To date they have been unable to reach a resolution.”
The last pretrial status conference is slated for July 15. Parties have until April 23 to amend their pleadings in would-be sub’s case against Leidos, the lead partner in the Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) team that won the $4-billion site-services contract at Hanford in 2019.
Pro2Serve filed suit in November, claiming Leidos improperly backed out of an agreement to include the subcontractor as part of the HMIS team, the other members of which are Centerra Group and Parsons Government Services.
For its part, Leidos said it never promised Tennessee-based Pro2Serve a sole-source subcontract and said HMIS was unable to get DOE approval for hiring the subcontractor without an open competition.
The litigation plays out against a backdrop of industry criticism against DOE. Companies say the agency has squeezed small firms out of work they have traditionally done at Hanford and directed primes to hire away employees of the suddenly idle small businesses.
