On August 2, 2010, Hewlett Packard (HP) announced that it had reached an agreement in principle with the U.S. Department of Justice to pay the Government $50 million to settle a lawsuit brought under the False Claims Act. The lawsuit alleged that HP was involved in a scheme with Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Accenture PLC to pay illegal kickbacks in order to obtain Government contracts. The qui tam lawsuit was filed by two whistleblowers that were former Accenture employees.
HP is also currently under investigation by the Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission for potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act due to alleged bribes paid by HP executives to officials in the Russian government.