Qudos Bank suing Infosys over alleged IP misuse

Australia’s Qudos Bank is taking legal action against Infosys relating to alleged copyright infringement, breach of contract and misuse of confidential information by the technology giant.

The Federal Court has ordered Infosys to produce documents and information in response to the bank’s potential claims after it commenced discovery proceedings last November.

Qudos said on Friday it is seeking documents in support of its concerns that Infosys may have misused the bank’s intellectual property and confidential information in developing software for another financial services group, Australian Military Bank (AMB).

Earlier this year, Infosys produced some documents and computer code as part of this action but resisted producing other documents that Qudos Bank sought.

In a judgement delivered on Monday, Justice Stephen Burley said there were “common elements within the structure” of the AMB and Qudos codes and “unexplained references to Qudos” in the AMB code. 

Infosys was ordered to produce documents recording the development and preparation of the AMB software and additional source code for two Infosys software projects to Qudos Bank.

Justice Burley found that Qudos Bank has reasonable grounds to believe that is rights have been infringed and that without further information being provided by Infosys, Qudos Bank could not reasonably determine whether or not to commence further legal action against Infosys.

Qudos Bank chairman Andrew Leithhead said in a statement on Friday morning: “Qudos Bank has engaged Infosys to build a fully integrated banking platform, including core banking, customer relationship management, online banking, mobile application and other systems. 

“During the period Infosys was working on the Qudos Bank contract we became aware of striking similarities between the software developed for our project and the AMB project. This made us very concerned that our intellectual property may have been misused and our confidence violated.”

“We viewed this very seriously and started legal action seeking information to determine whether our copyright had been infringed, our contract terms had been breached and confidential information misused”.

Leithhead said he welcomed Justice Burley’s decision and look forward to reviewing documents producedby Infosys to enable Qudos Bank to assess the nature and extent of any infringement by Infosys of Qudos Bank’s rights. Qudos Bank is committed to protecting its valuable ntellectual property against any potential misuse” 

CIO Australia has reached out to Infosys for comment.

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