US investigates SAP, Carahsoft over price-fixing claims, Bloomberg News reports
Adds SAP statement in paragraphs 3 & 4, shares in paragraph 5; rewrites throughout
Sept 24 (Reuters) -The U.S. is investigating German software firm SAP SAPG.DE, U.S. IT services provider Carahsoft Technology, and others in a civil probe for potentially conspiring to overcharge government agencies over the course of a decade, Bloomberg News reported late Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers have been investigating since at least 2022 whether SAP illegally conspired with Carahsoft to fix prices on sales to the U.S. military and other parts of the government, Bloomberg said, citing federal court documents filed in Baltimore.
In an emailed statement, SAP said it was under a civil investigation by the DOJ and did not disclose further details.
"All we can say is that there has been a civil investigation by the DOJ, and SAP has been cooperating with the investigation since the beginning," the German firm said. The company was not aware of any criminal investigation, it added.
SAP shares fell 3.3% to 200.1 euros on Wednesday.
Bloomberg reported that the civil probe is focused on the companies possibly rigging the market for the more than $2 billion worth of SAP technology that the U.S. government has purchased since 2014.
The DOJ lawyers are also examining the role of other software resellers and a unit of Accenture ACN.N, the report added, citing court documents.
An Accenture spokesperson told Bloomberg that the unit, Accenture Federal Services LLC, "is responding to an administrative subpoena and is cooperating with the DOJ." The firm did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that U.S. federal agents had searched the Washington-area offices of Carahsoft. The company told Bloomberg that the investigation was into a company with which it had done business in the past.
Carahsoft did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. Bloomberg said it was not clear if the search was related to SAP.
Reporting by Angela Christy and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan
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