Newtown-based Epam Systems responds to, slams articles reporting ties to US healthcare website

Tom Paine

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A story in the Washington Free Beacon by Bill Gertz, a reporter who is considered knowledgeable on national security issues (though I haven't heard much of him for a while, and know nothing of the Free Beacon) reported that Newtown-based Epam Systems, which had its origins and still has much of its workforce in Belarus and other parts of Eastern Europe, did considerable development work on the Healthcare.gov website or other software modules related to it. The article cites Belarus' close ties to Russia, a past alleged cyber attack by Belarus against the US, and radio comments by a Belarus official claiming his country's role in developing the US healthcare website.

It implies that if Epam was involved, its a potential national security concern.

Epam Systems is listed on the NYSE and has a market value of nearly $2 billion. The stock
seems unaffected by this story so far.

Epam issued a response today via press release stating that "Epam has never been involved in software development for the Healthcare.gov website or any Affordable Care Act related engagements."

I was particularly amused by founder and CEO's Arkadiy Dobkin comment: "Epam unequivocally denies having anything to do with the development of the HHS Healthcare.gov website. And that should be an obvious fact, because if we had, it would have functioned properly from day one."

The Free Beacon article did almost no research on Epam, its established history in the US, or its founder Dobkin. I'm not in a position to know what Epam's relationship might be with the Belarus government, but I have no problem in saying that the Free Beacon article did a shoddy job in connecting EPAM to the US healthcare website or to undue influence from the Belarus government.