Tata Group asked to pay $940 million to US firm for stealing trade secrets
Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons Ratan Tata and N. Chandrasekaran (CEO & MD, TCS). Picture Courtesy: The Hindu
A US jury has asked two Tata Group companies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Tata America International Corp, to pay a total fine of $940 million in a trade secret lawsuit filed against them.
US based Epic Systems had filed a lawsuit in October 2014 against TCS and Tata America International Corp for stealing their trade secrets, confidential information, documents and data. Epic had alleged that TCS stole the data while consulting for its customer.
During one of the earlier hearing, Epic’s lawyers had said that TCS employees had been accessing their software beyond the scope of requirement in a bid to improve their own product.
Epic had also found out that one TCS employee from India had downloaded over 6000 documents from them.
After months of hearing, the grand jury in the US State of Wisconsin ruled that Tata Consultancy Services and Tata America International Corp must pay $240 million to Epic Systems copying their software. They also asked the companies to pay an additional $700 million as punitive damages, thereby taking the total fine to $940 million.
