The Small Business Administration again ruled that incumbent Swift and Staley is too large to be the next landlord services provider at the Department of Energy’s Paducah site, kicking the matter back to a federal court and keeping the company on site at least through February 2022.
That’s according to a Friday filing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which in September ordered the Small business Administration (SBA) to reexamine its April decision that Swift & Staley exceeded the size limit for the five-year, $160-million, small-business set-aside site services contract DOE awarded the company in December 2020.
Swift & Staley will keep fighting the matter in court, the company wrote in a Friday filing.
In September, federal claims Judge Thompson Dietz said the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals misinterpreted federal law when it ruled Swift & Staley was too large for the December award due to the Kentucky firm’s “negative control” of the ordinary business activity of another DOE services contractor, Portsmouth Mission Alliance: the incumbent site services provider for the Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio.
The federal government planned to file more documents related to SBA’s court-ordered reconsideration of its April size determination as a supplement to the administrative record before the Federal Claims Court. Swift & Staley plans to amend its complaint “to state its asserted grounds for reversal of the new agency decision,” according to the joint motion on Friday.
The parties, which include the Department of Justice, Swift & Staley and rival bidder Akima Intra-Data — which sparked the SBA review in the first place — plan to file a joint scheduling order with the Federal Claims Court this week detailing timelines for motions for summary judgment and oral arguments in the case.
Swift & Staley has provided site services, which includes duties from recordkeeping to road and building upkeep, since October 2015 and its current contract is valued at about $267 million.
