IBM Corp's Czech unit said on Monday it would appeal against a Defence Ministry decision to award a 1.3 billion crown deal to deliver an information system to a consortium of EDS and Digital Equipment Corp.
IBM said in a statement that EDS-Digital did not fulfil a tender condition that stipulated participation of only those companies which have acomplished projects in the Czech Republic to a similar extent.
"There are a number of reasons why we are appealing, we are still working on it," said IBM's spokesman Michal Urvalek. He declined to give more information on the appeal.
The IBM move comes on the heels of Unisys Corp's announcement on Thursday that it too would appeal the decision. Any appeals must be delivered to the ministry this week.
IBM placed third in the eyes of an 11-member committee evaluating bidders in the tender behind, Unisys which came in first and EDS-Digital, which won the contract after the ministry decided not to follow ratings.
Implementation of the staff information system is seen as a large step on the path to make the Czech army more compatible with armed forces of NATO countries, but finding its supplier has been a struggle.
Unisys won an original four billion crown supply tender which was abolished last year after Czech competition authorities found irregularities in the process.
The original tender was cancelled by the Defence Ministry, but the former Ministry for Economic Competition intervened and cancelled that decision before ordering a new tender itself.
Unisys and IDOM, a unit of Deloitte and Touche, were ousted from the new tender earlier this year for application violations, but were later allowed to re-enter the competition.
Unisys denied the mistakes, as revealed by the ministry, ever happened.
In announcing the winner, Defence Minister Miloslav Vyborny said that technical quality of EDS-Digital and Unisys bids was almost identical, but EDS was chosen because its offer was 109 million crowns cheaper.
After the Vyborny's announcement, Unisys immediately said it would and to go to the Economic Competition Office if necessary. On Monday Unisys officials added they could not rule out a request for police to investigate the tender proceedings.
"Our lawyers are investigating this possibility... but it is priority number two, a step after other possibilities fail," said Jiri Nykodym, of Unisys's Czech unit.
Unisys said Vyborny was wrong to take the decision since under tender rules, price should have been a decisive factor only if two bidders received identical scores from the commission.
"By decision... the tender rules were broken, and, in fact, the way of evaluation of bids was changed in the course of the tender at the moment when it became clear that... Unisys would have won the tender for the second time," Nykodym said.
-- Prague Newsroom, 420-2-2423-0003
