Late Friday, TVA issued a statement announcing Nuclear Development LLC, the prospective buyer of Jackson County’s long-dormant Bellefonte nuclear power plant, was unable to meet “its legal obligations” required to complete a $111 million sale.

The sale was due to be completed by Nuclear Development on Friday and is viewed by many to be a significant setback to the decades-long on-again, off-again ordeal of TVA’s Bellefonte facility.

“Nuclear Development did not complete the necessary [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] license transfer prior to the closing date as required by the Atomic Energy Act,” the statement explained.

This is not the end for Nuclear Development’s Bellefonte.

Almost immediately after the announcement, attorneys for Franklin Haney, a Chattanooga developer who is a principal with Nuclear Development, announced a lawsuit against TVA for illegally blocking the sale.

According to a report from Chattanooga, Tenn.’s Times Free Press, a 14-page lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Huntsville arguing the basis of TVA rejection of the Nuclear Development’s purchase, which is an application of the Atomic Energy Act, was “erroneous.”

“The transfer of the Bellefonte site and its improvements in their current condition to Nuclear Development does not violate the NRC permits, the NRC regulations or the Atomic Energy Act,” Caine O’Rear III, a Mobile attorney who filed the lawsuit Friday on behalf of Haney said to the Times Free Press. “Moreover, the transfer of the NRC permits is not a prerequisite to closing under the contract.”

Nuclear Development won a 2016 auction with a $111 million winning bid to purchase Bellefonte and was prepared to close the sale on Friday.

In a text message to Yellowhammer News, State Sen. Steve Livington (R-Scottsboro) called it a setback and applied a quote from New York Yankees great Yogi Berra to the situation.

“It ain’t over until it’s over,” he said.

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.