German software developer SAP, product vendor Carahsoft Technology and other companies are being investigated by US authorities for a decade-long ‘conspiracy to overcharge government agencies’.
Since at least 2022, Justice Department lawyers have been investigating whether SAP, the giant maker of accounting, human resources, supply chain and other business software used worldwide, illegally conspired with Carahsoft to fix prices on sales to the US military and other parts of the government, Bloomberg reported, citing federal court records in Baltimore.
The investigation, which has not been made public, poses a legal risk to the leading technology supplier to the US government and Germany’s most valuable company.
The investigation also extends to powerful software vendor Carahsoft, whose offices in Virginia were raided by FBI agents and military investigators on Tuesday.
Company spokeswoman Mary Lange described the raid as ‘an investigation into a company with which Carahsoft has done business in the past’. It is not clear whether the search is related to the SAP investigation. Lange and other Carahsoft representatives declined to answer detailed questions.
According to court records, the long-running investigation focuses on companies that may have rigged the market for more than $2 billion in SAP technology purchased by the US government since 2014.
Records show that prosecutors are also investigating the role of other software vendors and a unit of Accenture, a giant management and technology consulting firm. Many investigations have ended without formal charges.
Accenture spokesman Peter Soh said the subsidiary, Accenture Federal Services LLC, ‘has responded to an administrative subpoena and is cooperating with the Department of Justice’.
The Justice Department classifies bid-rigging as a form of fraud that involves an agreement between competitors on who will be the winning bidder.
It is unclear exactly when prosecutors began investigating the relationship between Walldorf, Germany-based SAP and Reston, Virginia-based Carahsoft.
But in June 2022, prosecutors sent Carahsoft a request to turn over documents and provide information about possible violations of the False Claims Act.
