US jury slaps fine of $940 m on Tata

A US grand jury has slapped two companies of India’s Tata group — Tata Consultancy Services(TCS) and Tata America International Corp — with a $940 million fine in a trade secret lawsuit filed against them. 

After days of hearing, the federal 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 for allegedly ripping off its software. Tatas have also been asked to pay another $700 million in punitive damages.

TCS on Saturday clarified that it did not derive any benefit from downloaded documents from Epic System’s user-web portal and that it will defend its position in the courts.

 “The company did not misuse or derive any benefit from downloaded documents from Epic System’s user-web portal. TCS plans to defend its position vigorously in appeals to higher courts. TCS appreciates the trial judge’s announcement from the bench that he is almost certain he will reduce the damages award,” the Indian company said.

 TCS did not misuse or benefit from any of the said information for development of its own hospital management system ‘Med Mantra’ which was implemented for a large hospital chain in India in 2009, the company added.

Epic Systems had accused TCS and Tata America International Corp, in a lawsuit filed in October, 2014 in US District Court in Madison which was amended in January and December 2015, of “brazenly stealing the trade secrets, confidential information, documents and data” belonging to Epic. In its lawsuit, Epic had said that TCS took that data while consulting for its customer.