Tata Consultancy Services' appeal against US software firm ' trade secret theft lawsuit has now moved to a US federal appeals court. A $420-million penalty on the Indian IT giant had earlier been upheld by a lower court. The US firm's lawsuit dates back to 2014. The case filed by it had accused of stealing its intellectual property. A jury in 2016 found TCS guilty and awarded Epic Systems a damage worth $940 million. A trade secret is an intellectual property that gives a company business advantage over rival companies or its customers. The trade secrets of a business are generally out of bounds for its competitors or, for that matter, any other business. Trade secrets could be anything ranging from designs and processes to methods or information. As per Epic's lawsuit, TCS employees were appointed as consultants in a hospital — the Sunnyside Medical Center, Portland. These employees had been brought in to help set up an Epic system. Epic alleges that these TCS employees stole as many as 6,000 pieces of important data containing its system development info. Epic says these people did it by setting up a fake user account. The person behind the fake account disguised himself as hospital staff and did not disclose that he was a consultant, the lawsuit alleges. A year after the original award, a court in Wisconsin brought the damage amount down to $420 million. It was done to comply with an existing legal limit on punitive damages for such matters. A source within the Indian IT giant has revealed that the employees who were responsible had been terminated as they were found to have violated the Tata Code of Conduct. The Wisconsin judge who had heard the case and brought down the damage, upheld the verdict last week following an initial appeal by TCS. TCS later filed a notice of appeal with a Chicago court. TCS said in January 2018 that it gave Epic a $440-million letter of credit. It has now strengthened its legal team by adding Sidley Austin, a reputed global law firm that has over 2,000 attorneys on its rolls. TCS it remained unwavering in its commitment to ethics, compliance and IP protection. TCS had not misused or obtained any advantage from those allegedly stolen documents, it maintained. TCS holds that the facts and evidence presented in court are not commensurate with the penalty imposed. It says it remains confident of a favourable verdict. Both parties in such cases filed in the US are typically allowed enough time to present their sides. All these processes can take a year or more to finish.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has had its appeal against a trade secrets lawsuit ruling moved to a federal court. The case, which dates from 2014, originally saw TCS fined $940m after a judge ruled its employees had stolen up to 6,000 pieces of data from US firm Epic Systems. The financial penalty was later reduced to $420m. The Indian IT firm is attempting to demonstrate the fine outweighs the evidence presented in court.