Claiming the US Department of Energy (DoE) overcharged them for uranium enrichment services a decade ago, 33 US and foreign utilities filed lawsuits against the department in early October seeking damages totaling more than $500 million.
Three sets of lawsuits, filed with the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington, DC, allege that DoE overcharged the utilities between FY 1985 and FY 1993. The main contention is that DoE factored into its pricing charges for imputed interest on a gas centrifuge enrichment project the department once planned to build at Portsmouth, Ohio, but terminated in 1985. The plaintiffs say the department should not have charged them for imputed interest because it wrote off the entire cost of the now-defunct $3.6 billion project.
