The State Auditor's Office says an office supply company overcharged North Carolina nearly $300,000 during a six-month period.

State Auditor Les Merritt said Wednesday that Office Depot overcharged the state between July and December 2007 by inflating the price of store-brand products included in its bid to the state, and changing the brand of items purchased.

Merritt said the Division of Purchase and Contract should have better monitored its Office Depot purchases. He said reports have shown the Florida-based company has overcharged four other states.

The state division disagreed with some of the auditor's findings but said it will work to implement the auditor's recommendations to prevent overcharging in the future. A message left Wednesday with Office Depot wasn't immediately returned.

The state of California is to seek new bids for its $28 million-a-year office supplies contract after the audit into the current Office Depot contract was published. “A new procurement process will begin immediately to evaluate solicitations for a new state office supply contract,” said the state’s Chief Purchasing Officer Jim Butler in a statement.

The move comes after a 5-month audit carried out by California’s Department of General Services uncovered a number of pricing issues related to the contract.

In particular, the audit criticised the inclusion of a third category of products that did not fall within the original core and non-core pricing structures and which accounted for $14.2 million – or 35 percent – of the total $40.7 million spent by the state between September 2006 and February 2008. Office Depot was also blamed for making the best value ‘core’ products difficult to locate on the online ordering system which led to purchasers buying higher-priced items.

On publication of the audit, Office Depot agreed to refund the state $2.5 million and an additional $56,000 in overcharges.

As well as contract pricing, the audit also looked into the whether the small businesses and disabled veteran business enterprises (DVBEs) that were part of the consortium established for the contract were indeed providing a commercially useful function (CUF).

The audit concluded that Office Depot had “acted in a good faith manner in implementing the CUF solution” and, although questions were raised as to whether the small businesses were required to take physical possession of the goods delivered, stated that the small businesses were performing their duties as per the contract.

But this did not satisfy California state assemblyperson Ira Ruskin who is pushing through legislation to outlaw the practice of small business ‘fronts’ in state contracts.

Ruskin told the San José Mercury News that even if the contract carried out the letter of the law regarding the role of small businesses, it did not carry out the spirit and that he would be seeking a meeting with state officials on the matter.

-Source: Opi.net

The Corporate Express takeover saga has finally ended after the Dutch contract stationer agreed to another improved offer from Staples.

 Corporate Express’ executive and supervisory boards have unanimously recommended Staples cash offer of €9.25 per share, which values the company at €1.7 billion ($2.55 billion) before debt.

In a statement, Corporate Express said that it had reached agreement with Staples on a number of key strategic, integration and staffing issues.

Peter Ventress will become president of Staples International, overseeing Staples’ business outside North America. He will report directly to Staples CEO Ron Sargent.

The European contract business will have its headquarters in Amsterdam and Staples have confirmed that they will make no material reductions in the workforce.

An integration committee, comprising senior management from both Corporate Express and Staples, will oversee the integration process.

“We believe that this offer is a good one for our shareholders and we recommend it wholeheartedly”, said Peter Ventress.

This, of course, means an end to the proposed takeover by Corporate Express of Lyreco, and the transaction has now been terminated.

Corporate Express said that while it believed that there was clear strategic and financial rationale for the merger, “the boards decided to withdraw their recommendation for the Lyreco transaction and to recommend the latest improved and fair offer from Staples”.

The EGM of 18 June will still go ahead, but a vote on the Lyreco deal will not now take place.

Corporate Express said that it would release a more detailed position statement on 12 June.

-Source: Opi.net