IBM ban from federal contracts lifted

THE BAN THAT the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) imposed on IBM last week has been lifted, the company said. The suspension, which the EPA had imposed out of the (big) blue could have had substantial ramifications for the company, as it prevented IBM from applying for any new government contracts.

The whole thing apparently came down to an $84 million EPA contract the company lost last year and was still protesting. It seems a reciprocal agreement between federal agencies means that when one of them issues a ban, the others have to follow suit.

It’s not entirely clear what the EPA ban was for in the first place, but IBM said in a statement that it would continuing to cooperate with the EPA and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which served grand jury subpoenas in search of documents and testimony relating to the contract. So apparently, they don’t know what’s going on either then.

A senior vice president at market research firm Federal Sources, Ray Bjorklund, told AP that the EPA's decision probably meant that whatever it was that sparked off the whole hoo-ha in the first place, it was probably an isolated event, and reckoned that the agency acted so as not to "adversely affect a whole multinational corporation". µ

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Big Blue Banned from Federal Contracts