US court has fined this Indian IT company Rs 800 crore in trade secrets case – Times of India

Sterlite Tech, an optic fibre manufacturer backed by Vedanta Group has been fined by a US court to pay $96 million (approx. Rs 806 crore) for trade-related rights violations. The infringement case involves Italian rival Prysmian, says a report by Economic Times.
Sterlite Tech is headquartered in Pune and is backed by the Vedanta Group. The company, in which mining group Vedanta led by Anil Agarwal holds a 45% stake posted a loss of Rs 82 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, on revenue of Rs 1,140 crore

What the court says

According to the report, a South Carolina jury found that Sterlite Tech has illegally obtained Prysmian’s trade secrets, including information on customers, new products, and manufacturing expansion plans.Italy’s Prysmian said that thousands of pages of documents were even found in the possession of executives at Ankit Agarwal-headed Sterlite.
In a statement to the exchanges, Prysmian said “The jury found that Sterlite was unjustly enriched by taking Prysmian’s trade secrets and awarded $96,500,000 in damages against Sterlite Technologies, Inc,”.
“In addition, the jury found that Stephen Szymanski had been unjustly enriched by misappropriating Prysmian’s trade secrets and awarded $200,000 against Mr. (Stephen) Szymanski, personally.”
Szymanski ran Prysmian’s optical fibre cable business in North America. He later joined Sterlite, a direct competitor, in August 2020.
The ET report quotes Andrea Pirondini, Prysmian North America CEO, who said “This case came down to the basic principle of right versus wrong, and we are pleased that the jury came to this decision. It was clear that we had a solid case, and the jury decision confirms how America looks at the protection of trade secrets.”

What the company says

In a statement, STL said it will ‘aggressively’ challenge the verdict. In a US exchange filing, it said ““STI reiterated its full commitment to the U.S. market and to its employees, distributors, sales agents, and customers in the region, several of whom testified for STI in the trial”.