IBM is putting legal pressure on Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission to reconsider its decision to make Accenture the preferred vendor for processing applications for Medicaid and other social security benefits. The award, made on February 25th 2005, has not been finalized and HHSC state that it is dependent upon final negotiations with Accenture.
IT services companies are increasingly looking to lawyers to challenge government decisions over major contracts. In February 2005, EDS bowed to pressure from the courts and agreed to stop performing any further work on its $860m IT services contract for the HUD (Housing and Urban Development Department), after rival Lockheed filed a lawsuit with the Court of Federal Claims to stop it transferring any more staff to EDS as a result of the deal, which the General Accounting Office ruled in December 2004 had been unfairly handed out.
The GAO discovered that mistakes had been made when it evaluated the two new bids from EDS and Lockheed at the renewal and asserted that Lockheed had put in a more competitive bid than EDS.
