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 filings in recent days with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which has directed parties in the case to file all new legal briefs in the case by Jan. 21. The trial, if it comes to that, will be held at some point thereafter.
The court on Thursday also instructed Swift & Staley to file an amended complaint in the case by Dec. 3.
In September the Federal Claims Court 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 Nov. 12 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 include the Department of Justice, Swift & Staley and rival bidder Akima Intra-Data — which sparked the SBA review in the first place. An attorney for Swift & Staley declined comment Friday as did a lawyer for Akima.
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.
