Global Business Travel Group Inc. (GBTG), acquired Egencia, a corporate travel management platform, from Expedia (EXPE) November 1, 2021. Three years later, Global Business Travel appears to be blaming Expedia for control deficiencies just now being revealed.

As part of the deal, Global Business Travel pays Expedia to operate certain information technology (IT) functions of the Egencia platform. At issue are the outsourced IT functions now making Global Business Travel’s revenue suspect.

In acknowledging the control deficiency, Global Business Travel pointed to the following trouble:

“Certain revenue and procurement processes and procedures of the Egencia business…”

Later, Global Business Travel appeared to blame Expedia for the problem:

“The Company has lack of oversight of these outsourced revenue and procurement processes and related controls, including general information technology ("IT") controls and IT application controls, that are used in the preparation of Egencia’s financial results. As a result, management has concluded the lack of oversight of such outsourced processes and controls is a material weakness as of December 31, 2023.”

It’s unclear to us, based on Global Business Travel’s latest annual report, why the control deficiency is just now being disclosed three years after forging the outsourcing agreement.