DisputeSoft was engaged as a software expert in December 2014 by the State of Maryland to assist in a pre-litigation investigation involving the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange (MHBE) contract award process and a vendor’s subsequent implementation of a health insurance exchange website.

On December 19, 2011, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) acquired Cúram Software Ltd (Cúram). That same day, Cúram submitted a proposal to develop a Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) website and IT platform for the State of Maryland. On February 22, 2012, the State of Maryland awarded the contract to Noridian Healthcare Solutions, LLC and named Cúram-IBM as a subcontractor. Cúram represented to the State that its commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) health exchange software, Cúram for Health Care Reform, contained out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality to comply with the newly implemented Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The HIX website launched on October 1, 2013, but was decommissioned in March 2014 following ongoing technical problems, and replaced with a modified version of Access Health IT software, originally developed by Deloitte Consulting LLC for the state of Connecticut. Following termination of the Noridian contract, the State of Maryland and the U.S. federal government raised civil claims against Noridian and several subcontractors involved in the implementation, including Cúram-IBM. The State alleged violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) arising from material misrepresentations that Cúram for Health Care Reform was not in fact a COTS product with functionality required for compliance with the ACA at the time Cúram submitted its response to the State’s Request for Proposal (RFP).

Our Services

As a software expert, DisputeSoft conducted the following analyses:

Investigated relevant software, systems, and documentation, including contract and architectural documents, source code, defect reports, and release notes.

Compared Cúram’s representations made at or prior to the date of contract award regarding functionality of its Cúram for Health Care Reform product against the product’s actual functionality at the time of release, to determine how much functionality had been added after procurement.

Performed defect data analytics to ascertain the extent and track the persistence of certain technical issues over time.

In June 2019, the parties entered into a settlement agreement, which was neither an admission of liability by Cúram-IBM nor a concession by the State that the civil claims were not well founded. IBM agreed to pay $2.8 million in damages to the State of Maryland and $12 million in damages to the federal government to settle alleged violations of the FCA.