A Boston defense contractor headquartered in the Seaport says it may have no choice but to file for bankruptcy within the next two months, blaming a stalled $100 million dispute with the Pentagon's supply arm that it says has left the company on the brink of collapse. Noble Supply & Logistics has told state regulators it expects to lay off 59 employees at its Seaport headquarters by October 9, and the company says it will permanently close its Boston office as a result of its current financial circumstances.
The warning came in an August 19 letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, first reported by The Boston Globe. In it, company founder Thomas Noble wrote that there is a meaningful probability that within the next 60 days, Noble Supply & Logistics will have no alternative but to file for bankruptcy protection. The dispute centers on the termination of what the company describes as a critical weapons support contract, which it says was originally set for 10 years but was shortened to less than four years, according to the letter.
Noble is pursuing a claim of approximately $100 million against the Defense Logistics Agency under the Contract Disputes Act, the federal law governing disagreements between contractors and government agencies. Under that statute, a contracting officer must issue a final decision on certified claims over $100,000 within 60 days or set a firm date, and failure to do so lets a contractor treat the delay as a deemed denial and appeal to the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, according to the board's own guidance. Thomas Noble said the Contract Disputes Act process takes time and resources the company no longer has.
A Contract Extension Offered, Then Withdrawn
According to the company's letter, the Defense Logistics Agency proposed a one-year contract extension in October 2025. The Pentagon then reversed course earlier in 2026 and said it would not exercise that extension, per the company's account, before imposing a hard stop on the program just three months after first proposing the extension.
Noble said it continued purchasing inventory to meet its contract commitments because of Pentagon indications that an extension was coming, and the company now says it is holding approximately $72 million in inventory purchases and commitments tied to the terminated program. Under Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 49 and Clause 52.249-2, when the government terminates a fixed-price contract for convenience, contractors can seek recovery for incurred inventory costs and settlement expenses, but the rules strictly prohibit recovering lost profits on unperformed work, according to guidance published on Acquisition.gov. Noble says the strain has already impaired its ability to pay suppliers on other Pentagon programs.
A Noble spokesperson said the Defense Logistics Agency's actions impact Noble and many small businesses across America. The company is classified as a small business under federal procurement guidelines, and it says it is searching for alternative financing while the claim remains unresolved. The spokesperson said Noble has not announced specific plans related to closing its Boston office, even as the company has told regulators about the pending layoffs.
What Noble Wants From the Pentagon
In his letter, Thomas Noble urged the Pentagon to establish clear guidelines honoring commitments to terminated contracts. The proposed guidelines he described would include accountability for decisions left unmade and decisions made incorrectly, along with binding deadlines for contract termination decisions and inventory buybacks.
The Defense Logistics Agency deferred comment to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon did not return a request for comment, the Globe reported. The dispute unfolds against a broader backdrop of Pentagon belt-tightening: in August, Hegseth announced $5.1 billion in Department of Defense contract reductions aimed at trimming what officials called wasteful spending and ancillary services across defense agencies, per the U.S. Department of Defense.
A Major Player in Military Supply Chains
Noble Supply & Logistics acts as a middleman between manufacturers and government agencies, distributing products from thousands of manufacturers and offering an integrated supply chain for tactical gear, hydraulics, electrical equipment and other products. The terminated contract at the center of the current dispute was intended for use in multiple weapon systems and included screws, bolts, fasteners, coils and other products. The company was awarded a $1.2 billion contract for industrial hardware and abrasives in 2022.
The company's footprint in federal defense contracting is extensive. In January 2025, the Defense Logistics Agency awarded Noble a single-vendor contract for facility maintenance, repair, and operations supplies across the Northeast Zone 2 region with a maximum ceiling of $1.94 billion, according to a filing on SAM.gov. Noble is also one of six prime contractors selected by DLA Troop Support for the Special Operational Equipment Tailored Logistics Support program, a master vehicle with a combined ceiling of $33 billion across option periods. In April 2025, Army Contracting Command separately awarded the company a $95.2 million firm-fixed-price contract to supply Forward Repair System M7A1 Tool Load packages through 2030, per the U.S. Department of Defense.
The company, which lists its headquarters at One Marina Park Drive in the Seaport, also maintains offices in Chesapeake and Harrisonburg, Virginia; Lexington Park, Maryland; Kazakhstan; Germany; and Okinawa, Japan. Noble has faced federal scrutiny before: in February 2025, it entered into a $1,034,496 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve civil claims involving an Air Force Special Operations contract at Cannon Air Force Base, agreeing to restitution and installment payments running through 2028. Separately, defense vendor Berg Co. agreed in July 2025 to pay $3.3 million to the Department of Justice to resolve allegations of submitting non-competitive bids under Noble's DLA maintenance and repair contracts for European Command.
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