BENGALURU: The US District Court in the western district of Wisconsin passed an order reducing the jury award of punitive damages to $140 million slapped on Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Earlier, the IT services company had been told to pay $280 million in punitive damages.
In 2014, Epic Systems filed a lawsuit alleging TCS had stolen its intellectual property. The US-based firm had alleged that TCS employees stole important data containing its system development information.
It alleged that they used a fake user account.
The US district court has directed the Clerk of the Court to file an amended judgement accordingly, TCS said in a filing on Monday. TCS is legally advised that it has strong arguments in its favour before the Appeal Court and the Order on the punitive damages are not supported by the facts presented by TCS before the Trial Court.
“We have been advised that the Order and the Judgement (when issued) is appealable to the US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit Chicago. The Company did not misuse or derive any benefit from EPIC’s documents and plans to defend its position vigorously before the Appeal Court,” TCS said.
Epic won a jury award in 2016 for $940 million. Next year, the amount was lowered to $420 million. Last year, a US Court of Appeals reduced damages to $140 million, and this has been now formalised.