US court gives a blow to TCS, imposes a fine of ₹1752 crore

Business Desk: The country’s largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has suffered a major setback from the American court. Just about a week ago it had suffered a setback from the US Supreme Court and now it has suffered a second setback. On the petition of Epic Systems, the US Supreme Court imposed a fine of $ 140 million on TCS in the case of theft of intellectual property. Now, just about a week later, the Texas Court has directed it to pay $210 million (Rs 1751.73 crore) to DXC Tech in another trade-secret case.

The case was filed by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), which became DXC Tech after merging with the enterprise services business of HBO. Last week, after the setback from the US Supreme Court, TCS said that its earnings in the September quarter could take a hit of $ 125 million.

What does TCS say?

A jury in Texas federal court in Las Vegas found TCS guilty of misusing confidential information related to DXC’s software to create its own platform. According to the jury, TCS used Vantage-One and CyberLife software, which manage life insurance and annuity policies, for its own benefit.

TCS disagrees with the jury’s advisory decision and the TCS spokesperson has denied all the allegations. The spokesperson said the court will now decide on the matter and the company plans to continue the litigation. The spokesperson declined to comment further as the matter was pending.

The case has been going on since 2019

The jury had earlier ruled that TCS owed $70 million for the misappropriation of DXC’s trade secrets and an additional $140 million for willful and malicious misappropriation. CSC had filed this case in 2019. It was claimed that TCS had hired 2,200 employees of Transamerica in 2018, through which it got access to CSC’s software, its source code, and other proprietary information to build a competitive life insurance platform.