Accenture prevails in battle for $3.5B Energy contract
Gettyimages.com/Thai Noipho
By
Nick Wakeman
Accenture's federal subsidiary clears an investigation over an alleged conflict-of-interest and will continue providing enterprise IT and business support services.
The Energy Department has completed its review of a $3.5 billion award to Accenture Federal Services and the now court-approved conclusion is the same – AFS is the winner.
Booz Allen Hamilton and Leidos had gone to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims with allegations that AFS had an organizational conflict-of-interest.
The protesters argued that AFS should not have won the CIO Business Operations Support Services 2.0 contract, a blanket purchase agreement known as CBOSS 2.0. Energy uses the BPA to acquire enterprise IT and business support services.
Energy decided to take a corrective action in March. Known as a remand at the courts, Energy took several months to investigate the alleged conflict.
Energy concluded there was no actual conflict. But there was an appearance of a conflict that warranted further investigation, according to an August court filing.
The department cleared AFS and again awarded the contract to the company. The court agreed to dismiss the case on Aug. 29 after Booz Allen and Leidos told the court they were dropping their protests.
Accenture Federal Services originally won the contract in January before the protests kicked off. The company has been the incumbent on CBOSS dating back to 2018.