Lawsuit Comet Hits Project Jupiter
The London Times reports that British Gas is suing Accenture for £182 million ($365 million) over an IT system project called Project Jupiter "it claims reduced British Gas’s customer-billing process to a shambles."
British Gas, according to the story, says the billing project "was the cause of the appalling customer service that lost British Gas hundreds of thousands of customers, a High Court writ from Centrica [the parent company of British Gas] says."
British Gas claims that it had to employ 2,500 extra staff to help resolve the billing problems created.
The story goes on, "The writ says the problems could be traced back to 2002, when Centrica engaged Accenture to provide a new IT system. Project Jupiter was to bring together British Gas’s electricity and gas-billing schemes into one system capable of handling 250,000 meter readings and 200,000 bills a day. The price was £317m, with Accenture being paid from the £397m in savings that British Gas expected from the new system over a decade."
"Various glitches arose, but the two sides agreed a revised contract in March 2006 under which Accenture provided guarantees that a software upgrade would work. According to Centrica, it did not," the story says.
An older article on the issues involved as reported in Computing can be found here.
The Times story also includes Accenture's response:
"An Accenture spokesman said that Centrica 'conducted extensive testing' on the system before it was handed over. He added: 'We are confident, based on the facts of the situation, that this claim is baseless and without merit. Accenture will vigorously defend the High Court proceedings.' "
“Accenture delivered the system at the end of 2005. The system we delivered met all of our commitments and the specifications that Centrica set; it was delivered on the agreed timeline and budget.”
I doubt this will ever make it to court. More likely is an out of court settlement with no fault being assigned to either party.
