Tata Group unit owes $210 mln in US trade-secret fight, jury says

Nov 21 (Reuters) - A jury in Dallas, Texas federal court has decided that India-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS.NS) must pay DXC Technology (DXC.N) $210 million, finding it stole DXC's trade secrets to develop competing life-insurance software.

The jury said in a verdict made public on Sunday that the Tata Group subsidiary misused confidential information about DXC's Vantage-One and CyberLife software for managing life insurance and annuity policies to create its own platform.

Tata said in a statement on Tuesday that it "respectfully disagrees with the jury's advisory verdict" and plans to "continue to litigate this ongoing case."

DXC said in a statement that it was pleased with the verdict, which was "consistent with the overwhelming evidence presented at trial."

DXC predecessor Computer Sciences Corp said in the 2019 lawsuit that it licensed its software to Transamerica subsidiary Money Services Inc. The lawsuit said that Tata hired 2,200 Transamerica employees in 2018 and used their access to CSC's software and knowledge of its source code and other proprietary information to build a competing life-insurance platform.

Tata denied the allegations, told the court that the information at issue was not secret and argued that it accessed the software legally.

The jury said on Friday that Tata owed DXC $70 million for misappropriating its trade secrets and an additional $140 million because its misuse was "willful and malicious."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Tata's appeal in a separate case where it was found to owe $280 million for misusing trade secrets from software maker Epic Systems to develop competing healthcare software.

DXC said in its lawsuit that Tata had "learned nothing from the outcome of the Epic litigation."

The case is Computer Sciences Corp v. Tata Consultancy Services, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, No. 3:19-cv-00970.