HP, Sun, Accenture named in kickbacks case

THE US Department of Justice (DoJ) has joined a lawsuit against HP, Sun, Accenture which it claims formed an alliance with vendors and have been giving each other kickbacks on government contracts since the late 1990s.

According to IDG, the lawsuits claim that the three companies submitted false claims to the US government on "numerous" government contracts since the late 1990s.

The lawsuit was originally filed by an Accenture employee Norman Rille and another whistleblower.

Millions of dollars of kickbacks were sought, received, offered and paid among the three companies and other technology partners, the DOJ said in a court filing made public Thursday.

HP claims its business practices were legal, although it said that about pre-texting. Accenture claims it "acted appropriately" and Sun had no comment.

The case could draw in other big names in the IT world. There are more than three dozen IT vendors named as Accenture alliance partners including Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, and Oracle. In one case Accenture received more than $735,000 in payments from IBM for "favourable treatment and influence" on six government contracts between 2001 and 2006, the DOJ filing alleges. Biggish Blue said it was surprised to hear this.

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