As part of a long-running legal slog, Swift & Staley’s attorneys say they could make the case this year for why the company should have won a small-business set-aside award for landlord services at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky.
But Swift & Staley Inc. (SSI), the incumbent landlord services provider, won’t be ready to go to trial in October, as preferred by the Department of Justice and Akima Intra-Data, a rival bidder for the new five-year, $160-million contract, according to the Aug. 12 filing by Swift & Staley.
The feds and Akima have indicated they can live with December, SSI said.
In addition, Swift & Staley said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit need not be in a hurry to rush things just because the feds and Akima want the litigation resolved before March 31, 2023, when Swift & Staley’s current business arrangement expires
“First, one of the key members of SSI’s legal team will be getting married and going on his honeymoon” from Oct. 3 through Oct. 24,” the company said in the filing. Swift & Staley would “face a serious disadvantage” without the newlywed present, the company said.
Secondly, Swift & Staley said its lead attorney Richard Rector is already set to argue another case in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Oct. 7. It’s unfair to expect SSI’s lead lawyer to argue two federal cases days apart, according to the Paducah incumbent.
Unlike the government, which is pushing for the appeals court to decide the case before the end of the Swift & Staley’s current landlord contract, SSI takes no position on when the court should rule. “We do note, however, that there are no provisions in the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure that requires the Court to issue decisions by a specific date or within a specific timeframe.”
Swift & Staley said U.S. Federal Claims Court Judge Thompson Dietz already effectively rejected the government’s request for a March 31, 2023 deadline to get the case resolved. Judge Dietz, who agreed with the Small Business Administration that SSI was “other than small” when the new contract was awarded in December 2020, also stayed his own order until the federal appeals court rules.
Swift & Staley has provided support services, ranging from bookkeeping to road maintenance, since October 2015. That business is currently valued at $336 million.
