Alleged misappropriation of source code: Told to pay $210 mn by US jury, TCS says matter still in court

Bengaluru: Indian tech giant TCS has been asked by a jury in Dallas, Texas Federal court, to pay $210 million to US IT Services Firm DXC (formerly CSC) for alleged misappropriation of source code to develop TCS Bancs, its software platform.

The jury explained that by infringing upon CSC’s proprietary platforms, TCS had accessed a trade secret. However, TCS had maintained that it respectfully disagrees with the jury’s advisory verdict.

It further stated that the matter would be decided by the court. It had ordered further briefing from parties.

The jury maintained that TCS had wilfully and maliciously misappropriated both source and confidential documentation by improper means.

The lawsuit in this regard was filed in 2019. It was alleged that TCS allegedly stole DXC's trade secrets to develop competing life-insurance software.

Further it was alleged that TCS misused confidential information about DXC's Vantage-One and CyberLife software for managing life insurance and annuity policies to create its own platform.

It charged that the employees of TCS assigned to develop Bancs platform faced challenges to find solutions for calculating a rate of return (ROR) in a particular insurance context.

It further alleged that TCS employees copy-pasted DXC’s source code when they faced difficulties developing their own software.

The lawsuit has also provided exchanged emails between TCS employees that they found a solution in the Vantage software.

Later, a TCS employee allegedly copied and pasted the actual Vantage source code pertaining to this calculation, and resulting Vantage calculations, into an email and sent it to his TCS colleagues.

This comes as a setback for TCS, as the US Supreme Court confirmed a punitive damages award of $140 million in Epic Systems case for unauthorized access of its web portal previously.