Justice Joins Suit Against 3 IT Companies

The Justice Department is joining whistleblower suits against Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, and Sun Microsystems, alleging the companies favored technology companies in exchange for kickbacks.

The three companies “submitted false claims to the United States for information technology hardware and services on numerous government contracts from the late 1990s to the present,” according to a Justice release. The suit was unsealed Thursday.

The suit contends that the three companies received payments, often in the form of rebates from more than three dozen IT vendors (including Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, and Oracle), which agreed to push their products. Justice claims that any discounts or rebates the companies offered should have been passed on to the government, InfoWorld reports.

“For example, Accenture received more than $735,000 in payments from IBM for ‘favorable treatment and influence’ on six government contracts between 2001 and 2006, the DOJ filing alleges,” InfoWorld notes.