'Infosys was caught red-handed misappropriating trade secrets', says Cognizant

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Cognizant Technology Solutions in a US court filing said Infosys was "caught red-handed" stealing the trade secrets of its healthcare software TriZetto, according to a Mint report.

This comes over a month after India's second-largest software exporter Infosys had counter sued the NASDAQ-listed Cognizant, alleging that the company and its CEO, Ravi Kumar, indulged in anti-competitive tactics and misused sensitive information to slow down the growth of its healthcare platform, Infosys Helix.

'Infosys caught red-handed'

"Infosys was caught red-handed misappropriating TriZetto trade secrets that Infosys originally had access to through non-disclosure and access agreements (NDAAs)," the report quoted the 22-page court reply of Cognizant, filed on February 7, as saying.

Cognizant's subsidiary Cognizant TriZetto had filed the lawsuit in Texas federal court, alleging that Infosys stole trade secrets related to its healthcare insurance software. Cognizant's software includes TriZetto's Facets and QNXT, used by healthcare insurance companies to automate administrative tasks. According to the complaint by Cognizant, Infosys misused TriZetto's software to create "Test Cases for Facets", which improperly repackaged TriZetto's data into an Infosys product.

'Infosys refused to allow an audit'

In the recent court response, Cognizant alleged that Infosys refused to allow an audit of its use of TriZetto information, which may have revealed some evidence.

"When confronted, Infosys obfuscated to the maximum extent possible, asking TriZetto to simply trust, based on nothing, that there had been no wrongdoing. When TriZetto refused to take Infosys as its word and demanded an audit of Infosys's use of TriZetto's information, as explicitly permitted under the NDAAs for any reason (much less rampant trade secret misappropriation), Infosys refused to comply," Cognizant said.

The IT major requested the court to order Infosys to produce all documents related to the issue.

Earlier poaching allegations

Notably, Cognizant and Infosys have been involved in a conflict for months now. It began when Infosys accused Cognizant of poaching its key executives after the former's president and deputy Chief Operating Officer Ravi Kumar S joined Cognizant as its Chief Executive Officer.

Also read: 10 things to know about Ravi Kumar

The poaching allegations were also levelled by another Indian IT giant Wipro, who had filed suits in the US and India against two of its former executives- Mohd Haque and the then Chief Financial Officer Jatin Dalal- who went on to join Cognizant. Later on, on July 9, 2024, the parties reached a settlement in the non-compete lawsuit filed by Wipro.