The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit planned to hear oral arguments at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Dec. 8 in Washington to consider whether Swift & Staley is ineligible for a small business contract it won in 2020 for infrastructure support services at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky.
The court planned to make live audio streaming of arguments available online. Audio files are typically posted on the court’s website following all the the day’s hearings.
After incumbent Swift & Staley won the new landlord services contract at the former Paducah gaseous diffusion plant,, rival Akima Intra-Data challenged the award before the Small Business Administration, arguing Swift & Staley was too big to qualify for the set-aside contract at the time of the award. The deal is worth up to $160 million over five years.
U.S. Federal Claims Court Judge Thompson Dietz eventually agreed Swift & Staley should be found other than small because of its minority interest in a joint venture with North Wind doing site services work at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
Dietz, however, declined to enforce his own ruling until the appeals court considers the case. After two years of legal wrangling, the end of the contract battle could finally be in sight.
Swift & Staley continues to oversee infrastructure services at Paducah under its existing contract that started in October 2015 and, thanks to a series of extensions during the contract challenge, is now valued at $336-million. The existing contract was set to expire on March 31, 2023.
