In a move to conform to state law, Epic receives $480 million instead of $940
According to reliable reports, the EHR giant Epic Systems will now be receiving less money than it expected in a trade secret lawsuit against an Indian company, Tata Consultancy Services.
Back in April 2016, a Wisconsin court jury awarded EHR vendor Epic a staggering $940 million in the case. Epic wanted to conform to the state law and asked the federal court to reduce the award to certain numbers, but it never knew what the future had in store for it. The law in Wisconsin caps punitive damages at the double of compensatory damages.
So, earlier this year, Epic asked the federal court to reduce the $940 million award which the jury had awarded it to $720 million. The company said the move was made to comply the state law. Interestingly, over the weekend, the U.S. jury went a little step further and actually halved the original $940 million that the Indian company (TCS) had to pay to $420 million.
EHR vendor Epic had filed a lawsuit against TCS in 2016 stating that TCS employees created a fake user account and took more than 6,000 documents containing Epic development information. The company said that the deed was done by TCS employees who worked as consultants at the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Portland, Oregon. The theft was conducted during an Epic EHR implementation.
The Indian company TCS said that it had not benefitted from or misused the documents it had downloaded.
