The US Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS:NSI) and confirmed the award of USD 140 million in punitive damages for improperly taking confidential information and trade secrets.

TCS announced the court’s decision in a regulatory filing on 21 November. The global IT services giant petitioned the Supreme Court in a case brought against it by Epic Systems Corp. — a software firm providing electronic medical records. 

Incidents alleged in the case took place from 2012 to 2014 when TCS employees accessed Epic’s confidential customer web portal without authorization and downloaded thousands of documents containing Epic trade secrets, according to court records.

“Armed with this stolen information, TCS created a ‘comparative analysis’ outlining the differences between its software and Epic’s. TCS then used this analysis to try to persuade one of Epic’s largest customers to abandon Epic in favor of TCS,” court records said.

A district court jury initially ruled in favor of Epic and awarded the company USD 240 million in compensatory damages and USD 700 million punitive damages. The district court lowered the compensatory damages by USD 100to USD 140 million. In addition, the punitive damages were ultimately lowered to USD 140 million after an appeal by TCS to the Seventh Circuit.

Punitive damages are designed to deter individuals and companies from committing similar deeds in the future.

TCS had appealed to the Seventh Circuit for a second time before appealing to the Supreme Court.

TCS in its regulatory filing said it plans to make a balance provision of approximately USD 125 million in its financial statements as an exceptional item for its third quarter and nine months ending 31 December.

SIA has contacted TCS and Epic Systems for further comment.