Please check the few points from some sites and few other links.

1. Atos did not have enough business analysts working on the requirements gathering
exercise, and to a lesser extent the same may have been true on De Beers side.
2. 2.There was a lack of availability of key personnel within De Beers. In particular,
there were problems with staff attending workshops and generally being available to
provide information. This was probably the result of a lack of direction from De Beers
senior management, combined with Atoss business analysts giving insufficient notice of
meetings.
3. 3.It took much longer than expected to establish De Beers requirements because Atos
had not fully appreciated during the Initiation and Analysis phase the complexity of De
Beers processes.
4. 4.It appears that in certain areas De Beers had not made up its mind what it wanted.

II

Legal Issues Disputes

There were a series of reasons for the delays in the project:
1. change requests that were genuine changes in the scope of the work;
2.

additional work resulted from specification of the original high level requirements (but did not

amount to changes in scope);

3. failures and delays by De Beers to clarify and finalise requirements;
4. errors or shortcomings in the design of the system, in particular the lack of proper systems analysis
or engineering;
5. delays in producing the system architecture.
One of the issues in dispute was whether De Beer knew of the delays at the time, and if it did, did it inform
Atos.
De Beers refused to pay the invoice, due to the delays and the unsatisfactory quality of work. Following
that, Atos then threatened to suspend all further work unless an additional 4m was paid. De Beers

brought a claim against Atos, and Atos subsequently counter-claimed for repudiatory breach of the
software development contract for the IT project.
In making their respective claims both parties sought judgment for repudiatory breach of contract. The
Court was asked to decide whether the contract was repudiated by De Beers withholding payment or Atos
suspending work.