Indian IT company Tata Consultancy Services has said it will challenge the fine of $940 million (Rs 6,265 crore approximately) imposed on it by a federal jury in the United States for stealing healthcare-related software code from American firm Epic Systems. The Tata group company has denied the charges and said it will appeal against the verdict in higher courts. A statement released by TCS said "the jury’s verdict on liability and damages was unexpected" and "unsupported by the evidence presented during the trial".

The jury on Friday held TCS guilty of stealing trade secrets, confidential information, documents and data from the complainant. It has has asked the Mumbai-based company to pay $240 million for Intellectual Property infringement, and $700 million for punitive damages. However, TCS said that it "did not misuse or derive any benefit from downloaded documents from Epic System’s user-web portal".

The National Association of Software and Services Companies of India has extended its support to TCS, reported the Economic Times. "As a policy, we do not comment on a company's case, but stand by [TCS'] response against the jury's verdict on the alleged infringement of intellectual property," Nasscom President R Chandrashekhar said.

In a lawsuit filed in October 2014, Epic Systems said it "recently learned from an informant" that TCS employees have been "fraudulently accessing" Epic's software beyond what the consulting contract required - and using Epic's software to improve their own competing product. They said an account belonging to a TCS employee downloaded 6,477 documents. The account was allegedly used from India and the US.