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Controversies

Unisys attracted significant criticism in 1994 after enforcing its patent on the LZW

Lempel-Ziv-Welch is a universal lossless data compression algorithm created by Abraham Lempel, Jacob Ziv, and Terry Welch. It was published by Welch in 1984 as an improved implementation of the LZ77 and LZ78 algorithm published by Lempel and Ziv in 1978....
data compression

Lossless data compression

Lossless data compression is a class of data compression algorithms that allows the exact original data to be reconstructed from the compressed data....
algorithm, which is used in the common GIF image file format. For a more complete discussion of this issue, see Graphics Interchange Format#Unisys and LZW patent enforcement.

Unisys was the target of "Operation Ill Wind

Operation Ill Wind

Operation Ill Wind was a three-year investigation launched in 1986 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation into corruption by U.S. government and military officials and defense contractors....
", a major corruption investigation in the mid-to-late-1980s. A number of employees were imprisoned as a result. As part of the settlement, all Unisys employees were required to receive ethics training each year, a practice that continues today.

In 2003 and 2004, Unisys retained influential lobbyist Jack Abramoff

Jack Abramoff

Jack Abramoff is an American former lobbyist, and a Businessperson who was a central figure in a series of Jack Abramoff scandals. He is currently incarcerated at the satellite prison camp adjacent to the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland....
, paying his firm $640,000 for his services in those two years. In January 2006, Abramoff pleaded guilty to five felony

Felony

A felony is a serious crime in the United States and previously other common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors....
counts for various crimes related to his federal lobbying activities, though none of his crimes involved work on behalf of Unisys. The lobbying activities of Abramoff and his associates are now the subject of a large federal investigation.

In 2005, there was further trouble for the company related to consulting work it was doing for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration

Transportation Security Administration

The Transportation Security Administration is a Federal government of the United States List of United States federal agencies that was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President George W....
. In October, federal auditors announced that the company had overbilled on the $1 to 3 billion contract for almost 171,000 hours of labor and overtime. Unisys denied wrongdoing; Unisys, along with two other major companies are currently competing to be awarded the next TSA contract. TSA is scheduled to make an award decision sometime in April 2009.

In 2007, the Washington Post reported that the FBI was investigating Unisys for alleged cybersecurity lapses under the company's contract with the United States Department of Homeland Security. A number of security lapses supposedly occurred during the contract, including incidents in which data was transmitted to Chinese

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
servers . Unisys denies all charges and said it has documentation disproving the allegations..

In 2007, after 3 years of massive losses and consecutive losing quarters, Unisys spun off one their service divisions to remain in business. Since the loss of Larry Weinbach the company has been in a free fall. Its Blue Bell Headquarters is already on the auction block and stands to bring in 100-150 million dollars to help stem the blood loss. In other cost cutting measures employees mileage reimbursements have been slashed and wages frozen. In addition, company 401K matches have been temporarily suspended.

In 2008 Joe McGrath stepped down after a no confidence vote from the board, and was replaced by J. Edward Coleman, former CEO of Gateway, Inc. The president of the Federal sector Greg Baroni was also fired.

Unisys announced on June 30, 2008 that the Transportation Security Administration

Transportation Security Administration

The Transportation Security Administration is a Federal government of the United States List of United States federal agencies that was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President George W....
(TSA) had not selected the company for Phase 2 of procurement for the Information Technology Infrastructure Program . In July Unisys announced its plans to file a formal protest of the TSA decision with the Government Accountability Office

Government Accountability Office

The Government Accountability Office is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of the United States Congress. It is located in the Legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States....
(GAO). On August 20th the TSA announced it was allowing bidding from all competitors including Unisys and Northrop Grumman, who both filed formal protests with the GAO and protested TSA's decision to the Federal Aviation Administration

Federal Aviation Administration

The Federal Aviation Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation with authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S....
's Office of Dispute Resolution, after not initially being selected.

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