Hewlett-Packard Settles Probe into Kickbacks Paid to Secure Government Contracts

On August 2, 2010, Hewlett-Packard announced that it reached an agreement in principle with the United States Department of Justice to settle both an ongoing government investigation and two False Claims Act suits related to allegations that HP, Accenture, and Sun Microsystems paid millions of dollars in unlawful kickbacks to secure government technology contracts.

The False Claims Act suits were filed in 2004 by Norman Rille, then a senior manager with Accenture, and Neal Roberts, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.  The Justice Department joined the suit in 2007 and filed its own complaint, alleging that the companies used their affiliates to enrich themselves through a kickback scheme in violation of the False Claims Act.  The settlement is subject to approval by the Justice Department and the courts.

For more information see:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/02/BUEC1ENPSD.DTL