A Wisconsin federal jury in April 2016 returned one of the largest trade-secret verdicts in U.S. history against Tata Consultancy Services, finding that TCS unlawfully accessed Epic Systems' confidential electronic-health-record technology while working as a Kaiser Permanente contractor. Between 2012 and 2014, TCS employees in Chennai and later Portland used login credentials obtained by employee Ramesh Gajaram, who had falsely identified himself as a Kaiser employee, to access Epic's restricted "UserWeb" portal thousands of times and download more than 6,000 documents (1,600 unique files totaling over 150,000 pages). TCS used the material to produce an 11-page "comparative analysis" spreadsheet contrasting its own Med Mantra software with Epic's modules, aiming to address gaps and enter the U.S. EHR market. The jury awarded $940 million: $140 million compensatory for use of the comparative analysis, $100 million for use of other confidential information, and $700 million in punitive damages. The district court vacated the $100 million award and reduced punitives under Wisconsin's statutory cap. In August 2020 the Seventh Circuit upheld the $140 million compensatory award but ordered punitives further reduced to $140 million as constitutionally excessive, and on November 20, 2023 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected TCS's final appeal.
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