BSkyB is suing EDS for 709m pounds ($1.4bn) in damages over a contract, signed in November 2000 and worth 61m pounds ($123.9m), to build a customer care center and provide CRM services. The deal was terminated by EDS in January 2003, but the following year BSkyB announced its intention to recoup a material amount to compensate for problems within the CRM system.
According to reports in The Financial Times, Mark Howard QC, opening the case for BSkyB, said EDS had failed to adequately research the prospective time and cost of the project when tendering its bid, instead producing a plan which reflected what it thought the client wanted to hear. Howard said EDS had put forward a sales pitch knowing that it was being done in a misleading way.
EDS was eventually selected ahead of PricewaterhouseCoopers, but Howard described the vendor’s performance over the initial nine months of the contract as woeful. He quoted from several documents written by other companies working alongside EDS on the project, including one from March 2001 that described the project as being in freefall.
EDS has stated its intention to defend against these allegations vigorously. The case, one of the largest yet seen in the UK’s technology and construction court, is scheduled to last for more than six months.
