Information Technology (IT) major Infosys escalated the legal tussle with Cognizant by filing a countersuit in a US court, accusing the Nasdaq-listed firm and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ravi Kumar of anticompetitive practices by maintaining its monopoly.
Infosys has also alleged that Kumar misused sensitive information that slowed the launch of the company’s health care platform Helix.
The Bengaluru-headquartered company has filed a countersuit in the Northern District of Texas, seeking a jury trial and three times the damages it claims to have suffered.
The countersuit follows Cognizant’s 2024 lawsuit accusing Infosys of stealing trade secrets related to its health care insurance software.
According to the lawsuit, seen by Business Standard, Infosys alleged that Kumar, who had been leading the development and sales of the Helix platform, was aware of the confidential information and slowed the platform’s launch by not allocating new programming talent to the project.
“His decisions effectively meant that, at the time, Infosys “cannot do any new development” for Helix.
Kumar left Infosys in 2022 and joined Cognizant in January 2023 as its CEO.
Infosys alleged that after Kumar’s departure, Cognizant poached other senior leaders, including Shveta Arora and Ravi Kiran Kuchibhotla.
“However, despite client demand and the need to advance Helix to the marketplace to compete with Cognizant, Arora continued the pattern of obfuscation and ineffectual delay established by Kumar.
"For example, despite Kumar’s approval of additional engineering staffing for Infosys Helix billable client work in August 2022, Arora did not get these essential roles actually staffed until nearly a year later,” said the suit.
“The pattern of inaction continued to cause delay in Infosys’s Helix development and tarnish its reputation with anchor clients.
"Kuchibhotla followed Arora’s lead, similarly, lacking urgency in coordinating staffing and delaying the provision of other necessary resources in support of Infosys Helix,” the suit alleged.
In 2023, Arora left Infosys and joined Cognizant. Kuchibhotla joined Cognizant in 2024.
In a statement, Cognizant said it was committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity in all business operations and “will take decisive action to address any allegations that compromise competitive standing”.
“Cognizant encourages competition, but competitors cannot use Cognizant's IP to unfairly compete, as Infosys has done.
"Cognizant's software products are widely used in the marketplace for being best-in-class and most preferred among customers,” the statement said.
Infosys has also accused Cognizant of leveraging its monopoly position in the US health care payor segment to stifle competition, which it claimed harmed the market and prevented clients from benefiting from competitive pricing.
The countersuit by Infosys comes at a time when the industry is facing growth pangs in its key markets like the US and Europe and even in the health care sector.
Since Kumar took over as Cognizant CEO, the company has ruffled feathers among major Indian IT players by poaching several senior executives from rivals.
Prior to the Infosys case, Bengaluru-based Wipro also sued Cognizant’s CFO, Jatin Dalal, for joining the company without completing a mandatory one-year cooling-off period.
In late 2023, Wipro filed the lawsuit in Bengaluru Civil Court after Dalal joined Cognizant as CFO.
This legal fight came to light as the company had already filed a case against one of its senior leaders in the US, Mohd Haque, for joining Cognizant.
The company also alleged that he transferred certain client specific details to his private gmail email account.
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