A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge was scheduled to hear oral arguments next month on whether Kentucky-based Swift & Staley is too large to qualify for the Department of Energy’s three-year, $160-million small business set-aside contract for Infrastructure Support Services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky.
Judge Thompson Dietz plans to hear arguments Feb. 10 in Washington,from the government, contract winner Swift & Staley and a competitor for the landlord role at Paducah, Akima Intra-Data, the judge said in an order issued Jan. 13.
The case dates back to December 2020, when DOE’s Office of Environmental Management awarded the incumbent Swift & Staley a new contract over Virginia-based Akima and other bidders.
Akima, however, protested the decision through the Small Business Administration (SBA) and its hearings and appeals panel agreed with Akima’s argument that Swift & Staley failed to meet the size restrictions for the contract. But in September 2021, Judge Dietz ruled the SBA panel’s decision was in error and sent it back for further review.
The case ricocheted back to Federal Claims Court in November after the SBA panel again found Swift & Staley failed to meet size restrictions. The parties have made various filings with Judge Dietz since then, most of them under seal and not available for public view.
Swift & Staley has been providing site services, ranging from recordkeeping to road maintenance, since October 2015. The existing contract, extended more than once during the litigation, is now valued at $280 million and currently slated to expire at the end of March, barring another extension.
