CBCA 8696

DISMISSED FOR LACK OF JURISDICTION: April 28, 2026 CBCA 8696 AOC CONNECT, LLC, Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, Respondent. William Reynolds, Chief Executive Officer of AOC Connect, LLC, Ashburn, VA, appearing for Appellant. William B. Blake, Office of the Solicitor, Department of the Interior, Herndon, VA, counsel for Respondent. Before Judges BEARDSLEY (Chair), O’ROURKE, and VOLK. BEARDSLEY, Board Judge. Appellant, AOC Connect, LLC (AOC), filed an appeal at the Board to dispute the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) failure to pay costs incurred as a result of a DOI-issued stop work order and to resolve other billing disputes that arose from April through July 2025. DOI filed a motion to dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction. We grant DOI’s motion and dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. CBCA 8696 2 Background1 DOI awarded task order 140D0420F0537 for voice communication services to AOC. On February 19, 2025, DOI issued a stop work order to AOC that was in place until March 20, 2025. The next day, March 21, 2025, AOC invoiced for costs incurred under three contract line items (CLINs) (the three March CLINs) as a result of the stop work order. In May 2025, AOC requested an equitable adjustment for eight CLINs, including $458,619.21 for the three March CLINs, related to the stop work order. On June 5, 2025, DOI responded to AOC’s request for equitable adjustment (the June 5 letter) and directed AOC to submit, by no later than June 30, 2025, a written request identifying the authority and factual support for the requested costs of the three March CLINs. DOI indicated that the requests for costs for the other five CLINs were time-barred. On June 30, 2025, AOC responded by email (the June 30 email) to DOI’s June 5 letter stating: Attached is our support for the 3 CLINS. The first layer of support is the transition plan that both AOC and the Government agreed to execute the expediated [sic] schedule off of. The government specifically signed off on the transition plan that included BOTs and site surveys. In the bulk orders the complex site survey was checked yes or the local site was identified during install as requiring multiple trips due to lack of data on the government side. I will have to try and condense the files supporting the specific orders as they keep getting pushed back. My IT guys are condensing them as we speak. AOC filed its notice of appeal to the Board on October 17, 2025. That same day and separately from the notice of appeal, AOC filed the June 30 email and identified this email as its claim upon which the appeal is based.2 DOI, in its motion, indicated that it understood 1 For purposes of ruling on DOI’s motion to dismiss, we assume the facts in DOI’s motion to be true because AOC did not oppose the motion or challenge the facts set forth in the motion, despite having the opportunity to do so. We also consider the documents submitted by AOC separately from the notice of appeal to be part of the initial pleadings in this appeal and look to those documents for additional facts relevant to deciding the motion. 2 AOC submitted this document in the Board’s electronic docketing system (EDS) and chose the docket entry title: Complaint or Amended Complaint. In the comment section of EDS, AOC stated, “Email claim following up on Response by the contracting officer in regards to [stop work order].” CBCA 8696 3 the June 30 email to be AOC’s “claim” upon which its appeal is based. Also filed with the June 30 email is a document from AOC’s chief executive officer to the contracting officer summarizing AOC’s “position on each CLIN, allowing us to align and move toward resolution efficiently,” a document titled “Appendix to Transition Plan” and the June 5 letter from the contracting officer responding to AOC’s request for equitable adjustment. It is not clear if these documents were originally attached to the June 30 email, although the transition plan is referenced in that email. AOC also submitted to the Board, separately from the notice of appeal and the June 30 email submission, a July 16, 2025, email that AOC identifies as the contracting officer’s final decision.3 The email states, “It is not clear what the data submission is for.