The Bengal Story Bureau: India’s largest IT services exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, has run out of legal options in the United States after the US Supreme Court declined to review a lower court judgment in a long-running trade secrets dispute. The top court’s decision leaves a 168 million dollar damages award intact, forcing the technology giant to absorb an additional financial blow.
Following the apex court’s refusal to intervene, Tata Consultancy Services announced that it will make an incremental provision of 70 million dollars in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. The company had already set aside 150 million dollars for the litigation in its books of accounts, bringing its total financial exposure in the matter to roughly 220 million dollars.
Exceptional Charge in First Quarter
The Mumbai-based IT major informed the stock exchanges in a regulatory filing that the United States Supreme Court denied its petition for a writ of certiorari on June 15, 2026. A writ of certiorari is a formal request asking the highest court to review a lower court’s decision.
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With the legal challenge effectively terminated, Tata Consultancy Services stated it would recognise the incremental amount of 70 million dollars towards damages, accrued interest, and legal costs. The firm will book this amount as a one-time exceptional expense in the June quarter of the current financial year.
Origins of the 2019 Lawsuit
The corporate dispute stems from a lawsuit filed in 2019 in a Dallas federal court by Computer Sciences Corporation, the predecessor of US-based DXC Technology. The complaint alleged that Tata Consultancy Services misappropriated proprietary intellectual property to build a competing life-insurance administration platform.
According to the legal filings, the software company had licensed its insurance platforms to Transamerica in the 1990s. The suit accused the Indian IT firm of hiring approximately 2,200 Transamerica employees and utilizing their inside access to Computer Sciences Corporation’s software and source code to develop its own rival system.
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Legal Progression and Verdicts
A federal jury in Texas concluded in 2023 that the technology major had willfully and maliciously stolen the trade secrets, recommending an advisory verdict of 210 million dollars. US District Judge Brantley Starr subsequently reduced the final award to 168 million dollars, which comprised 56 million dollars in compensatory damages and 112 million dollars in punitive damages.
The New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district judge’s reduced figure in 2025. During its subsequent appeal to the apex court, the Indian firm argued that damages based on unjust enrichment should not be awarded without proof of actual financial losses to the plaintiff, and that the punitive component was excessive. DXC Technology maintained that the lower court decisions were sound and did not warrant further review.
Financial Standing Intact
Despite the legal setback, the impact on the firm’s overall financial health remains manageable. The company reported a consolidated net profit of 13,718 crore rupees, or about 1.45 billion dollars, for the fourth quarter of the preceding financial year.
Shares of the IT major traded over two per cent higher at 2,208.50 rupees apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange following the disclosure, reflecting market resilience as the long-running legal uncertainty drew to a close.
