The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration this week appealed a court decision in a lawsuit to let some 20 employees of contractor MOX Services retain access to vital project information about on the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina.
The federal government filed its appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Wednesday.
The federal government is protesting Judge Thomas Wheeler’s April 16 decision in U.S. Court of Federal Claims to grant MOX Services’ request for a protective order that allows not fewer than 20 company employees to “retain all credentials that are necessary to physically access MOX Project areas” at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.
MOX Services said it needs a presence at the site to “retain administrative control rights and full authority to grant access rights to the MOXnet, which encompasses various business systems, applications and documents created and maintained by Plaintiff to perform the contract,” according to the order.
The court sealed the government’s arguments against the motion.
MOX Services sued the NNSA in the Court of Federal Claims in 2016 for some $200 million in damages and withheld fees, arguing the government caused the very delays it later cited as reason for terminating the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility last October. As of April, MOX Services had laid off about 1,000 of its 1,500 employees.
