Letter: IBM case: Many questions not addressed and not answered
There was a protest. The protest was never settled — it was made todisappear through the magic of the suspension that was hanging over anhonorable company.
What do you think? Paste a comment in the box below (registration required), or send your comment to (subject line: Blog comment) and we'll post it.
Regarding, "IBM case: A question of due process," a reader writes: This article does not address the real issues.
There was a protest. The protest was never settled -- it was made to disappear through the magic of the suspension that was hanging over an honorable company, IBM, i.e., a quid pro quo. "I will lift your suspension if you drop your protest."
CGI has the contract but was IBM correct in its protest? Will that ever be resolved or will the agreement leave this as a lost forever "cold case"?
IBM employees allegedly obtained information on source selection that was used, from what I can determine from the documents, as the basis of the protest. If this is true these employees, and maybe management should be punished by IBM and potentially by the Justice Department for such a breach.
What about the EPA? How lax were they in their security procedures allowing the source selection criteria to be allegedly obtained by individuals outside of the EPA? Was the information as a result of a written document or was it passed on orally? Are there individuals at
the EPA that should be punsished as well if the alleged transgressions actually occurred?
What about the basis of the IBM protest? Did the EPA violate its own award criteria in the selection process? Was there information provided to the source selection committee by the technical and/or pricing committees that should have precluded the contract award to CGI -- that
was ignored?
A lot of questions but very few answers.
Mike Abramowitz
letters@fcw.com
There was a protest. The protest was never settled -- it was made to disappear through the magic of the suspension that was hanging over an honorable company, IBM, i.e., a quid pro quo. "I will lift your suspension if you drop your protest."
CGI has the contract but was IBM correct in its protest? Will that ever be resolved or will the agreement leave this as a lost forever "cold case"?
IBM employees allegedly obtained information on source selection that was used, from what I can determine from the documents, as the basis of the protest. If this is true these employees, and maybe management should be punished by IBM and potentially by the Justice Department for such a breach.
What about the EPA? How lax were they in their security procedures allowing the source selection criteria to be allegedly obtained by individuals outside of the EPA? Was the information as a result of a written document or was it passed on orally? Are there individuals at
the EPA that should be punsished as well if the alleged transgressions actually occurred?
What about the basis of the IBM protest? Did the EPA violate its own award criteria in the selection process? Was there information provided to the source selection committee by the technical and/or pricing committees that should have precluded the contract award to CGI -- that
was ignored?
A lot of questions but very few answers.
Mike Abramowitz
letters@fcw.com