IT major Cognizant has sued a New York based regulatory agency accusing it of overbilling the IT services firm by at least $20 million. In a petition filed in the Southern District of New York, the IT major claimed that Bohrer PLLC and its managing partner, Jeremy I. Bohrer, had billed it thousands of dollars in charges and bills for work that it either did not complete as invoiced or completed for a fraction of the billed value.

Bohrer PLLC was one of five regulation firms hired by Cognizant's former chief authorized officer Steven E. Schwartz, to defend him against US Department of Justice proceedings under the International Corrupt Practices Act in a case where he was accused of authorizing the payment of $1.6 million in bribes to Indian authority officials to obtain a development permit for the company's campus on a piece of land in India.

Rumour has it that the IT major was legally bound to provide Schwartz with affordable allowed charges and invoices incurred by the companies representing him. It contended, however, that the allowed charges and bills supplied by Bohrer PLLC were not affordable.

Cognizant proposed a $20 million in compensation for its financial losses. The New Jersey-based corporation also demanded punitive damages from the regulatory agency and the legal value.

Cognizant further claimed that Bohrer used distributors in which he had an ownership stake to work on the Schwartz case, but failed to declare this conflict of interest.

The company which claimed that a whistleblower had informed them of Bohrer's actions, then hired an investigation firm to verify the authenticity of the whistleblower's e-mail. The invoices filed by Bohrer PLLC "dwarfed those supplied by the four distinct entities defending Schwartz”, according to the report. “At times, Bohrer PLLC's monthly charges were more than double the amounts charged by the other four organizations combined”, Cognizant said.

The company asserted that it had refused to pay Bohrer's invoices in 2019 and that the case had been handled by a US court.

Bohrer had also billed Cognizant for document review at a 600 percent markup over the cost of third-party attorneys who completed the review on contract, according to the company.

“In addition to contractual obligations, attorneys in New York state are governed by the New York Lawyer's Code of Skilled Duty, which includes a number of guidelines, including charging the shopper a reasonable and proportionate fee", said Ashish K Singh, co-founder and joint managing companion, Capstone Authorized.

Earlier, the US Department of Justice charged Schwartz and Cognizant former President Gordon Coburn in February 2019 for authorizing the payment of bribes. They were also found to have broken the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by fabricating books and data, as well as failing to maintain internal accounting controls.

In February 2019, Cognizant paid $ 25 million to the US Securities and Change Fee to settle charges that the company had violated the FCPA.