>From the The Wall Street Journal: http://tinyurl.com/6jhwvn
In an agreement between the EPA and IBM released by the EPA Friday, IBM said that it has put on leave five IBM employees identified by the EPA for their involvement in the case. The EPA temporarily banned IBM last week from receiving new contracts -- a move that automatically became effective government-wide -- while it investigated "potential activities involving a procurement." The suspension was related to a ten-year, $84 million deal awarded in February 2007 to CGI Federal, a U.S. subsidiary of Canada-based CGI Group Inc., to modernize the EPA's financial management system. IBM, which was also vying for the contract, protested the award two months later to the Government Accountability Office, according to information provided by market research firm Federal Sources Inc. The EPA said its official in charge of suspensions found "adequate evidence to support allegations" that IBM employees obtained confidential information from an EPA employee and used it in negotiations for a contract. The EPA said that "IBM officials knew [the information] was improperly acquired." The agreement doesn't provide any names of officials involved. The five employees must not have paid attention during Business Conduct Guidelines training before they signed their copy. The will be joining the unemployment line before the criminal investigation is complete. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
