TCS in a bad spot

TCS is in a bad spot currently. Two spotlights on the company – one is the infringement case filed by Epic and the other is Q4FY16 numbers expected later in the evening. But for now, the market is dogged by this ‘stealing’ charge levied on the company.

Wisconsin federal jury on Friday slapped a $940 million penalty, including $700 million in punitive damages, on TCS for allegedly stealing healthcare software from an American company, Epic Systems.

The story so far -  TCS was mandated by Kaiser Permanente to test Epic System’s health record products. Being given complete access to its web portal, it is alleged that a few TCS employees downloaded documents from Epic’s portal and used that to make its own hospital management system – Med Mantra. Epic alleges that this Med Mantra is a complete  copy-paste.

Naturally, TCS has denied the charges and denies any misuse or gaining any benefit from Epic. But for now, the finger or accusation stands firmly pointed against TCS and this breach of faith does not look good.

The stock price slipped down intra day by 3% to Rs.2449 and currently remains in the red at Rs.2473 levels.