After about a month of negotiations, the Department of Energy and the prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility could not agree to settle their differences over some $1 million in disputed payments related to raises the company gave 55 employees a few years ago.
“Unfortunately, the parties’ efforts have not resulted in a resolution … and it appears that they are at an impasse,” attorneys for DOE and MOX Services wrote in a joint status report filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
MOX Services and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Oct. 9 together advised the court they were attempting to settle one of several complaints now consolidated into a lawsuit the company filed against the agency in 2016. At issue were contract payments worth about $1 million the NNSA allegedly withheld around 2017 after a federal audit that showed the salaries of certain non-craft-labor MOX Services employees did not match the levels the agency expected.
MOX Services said the discrepancy developed from allowable raises given to 55 employees who joined one of its subcontractors and co-owners, CB&I, after that company acquired another MOX Services subcontractor and co-owner, Shaw, in 2013.
MOX Services said CB&I — which was acquired by McDermott International this year — gave the raises in a broader effort to realign the salaries and job titles of former Shaw employees with comparable CB&I personnel. The NNSA said CB&I did not document any justification for those raises, so the agency withheld a portion of the money owed to the company under its prime contract to build the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF).
The NNSA wants to turn the MFFF into a factory for fissile nuclear-weapon cores called plutonium pits. The plant was designed to turn 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into fuel for commercial reactors as part of a reciprocal arms-control pact with Russia. The DOE agency claims that mission is unaffordable and on Oct. 10 terminated MOX Services’ prime contract to build and operate MFFF.
