CBCA 7147

ORDER DENYING, WITHOUT PREJUDICE, RESPONDENT’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE EXHIBITS IN THEIR NATIVE FORMAT: December 9, 2025 CBCA 7147, 8110 WILLIAMS BUILDING COMPANY, INC., Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Respondent. Kevin M. Cox of Camardo Law Firm, P.C., Auburn, NY, counsel for Appellant. Randal W. Wax, Office of the Legal Adviser, Buildings and Acquisitions, Department of State, Washington, DC, counsel for Respondent. LESTER, Board Judge. ORDER1 1 This order is being published to assist in providing greater transparency to the public about the manner in which the Board has addressed issues in cases before it. Nevertheless, although single-judge orders like this one are binding in the appeals in which they are issued, they are, consistent with Board Rule 1(d) (48 CFR 6101.1(d) (2024)) not precedential in other appeals before the Board. CBCA 7147, 8110 2 This order addresses attempts by the Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) to include Microsoft Excel (Excel) spreadsheets as exhibits in the Rule 4 appeal file and to file them with the Board. Background The Board recently lifted a stay of proceedings in these two consolidated appeals after, on July 23, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit resolved a related appeal, Williams Building Co. v. Secretary of State, No. 2023-2337, 2025 WL 2057994 (Fed. Cir. July 23, 2025). That case arose out of the same contract as the one at issue here, and, as indicated in the Board’s decision on respondent’s motion for partial summary judgment dated November 21, 2025, the resolution of that case affects the scope of the appellant’s recovery in these consolidated appeals. On June 2, 2023, shortly before the Board stayed proceedings in these appeals, OBO filed a Rule 4 appeal file supplement that contained Exhibits 400 through 559. When OBO submitted those exhibits to the Clerk of the Board for filing, it also filed what it titled a “Motion To File Certain Exhibits in Native Format” in which it indicated that some of the exhibits that it needed to file were Excel spreadsheets. In the appeal file supplement that it submitted with the motion, it used “placeholder” documents in a portable document format (.pdf) as a substitute for forty-eight separate Excel spreadsheets. Each of the forty-eight “placeholder” documents was a one-page .pdf containing the following (or similar) language: “Excel File Produced in Native Format.” Although OBO’s index for the Rule 4 appeal file supplement describes the exhibits as representing subjects such as “[Williams Building Company (WBC)] Financial Statements 2016” (Exhibit 401), “WUAN Contract . . . Mod. 20 ‘Draft’ support for daily rate” (Exhibit 407), “Statement of Cost Review Summary” (Exhibit 412), and “Change Order Log” (Exhibit 458), the only “document” associated with each title is the one-page document which reads, “Excel File Produced in Native Format.” In its June 2, 2023, motion, OBO requested “leave to file . . . a portion of its Rule 4 Exhibits in Native format with a separate PDF placeholder containing the required Rule 4 Exhibit stamp and Bates number.” The Board, during the suspension of proceedings in the appeals, deferred resolution of OBO’s motion. The Board has no record of OBO ever sending to the Clerk’s office any of the forty-eight Excel documents represented by a “placeholder” .pdf. Although OBO filed a motion for partial summary judgment (that the Board resolved on November 21, 2025) in which OBO on several occasions referenced Exhibit 458, the only copy of Exhibit 458 in the record is OBO’s single-page “placeholder” .pdf. CBCA 7147, 8110 3 More recently, on September 30, 2025, after the Board had lifted the stay of proceedings, OBO filed a new appeal file supplement, adding Exhibits 600 to 634 (plus a corrected copy of an earlier-filed exhibit) to the record. Each of the exhibits identified as Exhibits 617 through 632 is a single-page .pdf document containing the following language: “No image available for this record.” Nevertheless, the index for Exhibits 617 through 632 describes the exhibits as substantive evidence, with titles such as “JS Held work paper: ‘WBC Summary (TW)’” (Exhibit 617) and “JS Held work paper: Labor Burden Native File SJA Working File” (Exhibit 631).