Sources inform ''Globes'' that Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (SingTel) (SGX: T48; ASX: SGT) has cancelled a joint project with Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE: DOX), because of a copyright infringement suit filed by Israeli start-up T-Jat Systems (2006) Ltd. against Amdocs.
SingTel, one of the world's largest carriers, is an Amdocs customer. Although they have several joint projects, SingTel is not one of Amdocs's three biggest customers, and does not account for more than 10% of its revenue, according to 2012 figures.
Communications equipment industry sources offer a range of estimates about the value of cancelled SingTel project, LoopMe, from a few million dollars to several tens of millions.
Amdocs said in response, "We cannot comment about matters relating to our relations with our customers."
As "Globes" was the first to report, T-Jat sued Amdocs for copyright infringement of its Unified Contact List (UCL) technology, which was leased to Amdocs. SingTel was interested in the technology. As usual in deals with a small company, the large customer sought to work with a third party to carry out the integration, which is where Amdocs entered the picture, as it already had ties with SingTel.
T-Jat named SingTel as a respondent in the lawsuit, and SingTel decided to cancel the launch of its LoopMe project, which allows combined voice and text calls, despite a soft launch a few months ago. In a letter to US District Court of the Southern District of New York Judge Paul Engelmayer, SingTel's attorney states that the cancellation provides the petitioner (T-Jat) with all the relief it requested, and requests that T-Jat agree to dismiss the case with prejudice.
In the legal proceedings, Judge Engelmayer said that T-Jat "is likely to succeed on the merits of its trade secret claim," and that, "If true, the damages can be gargantuan." He cautioned, however, that Amdocs did not have the opportunity to file a statement of defense, and that he therefore decided not to rule on the case, and sent it to arbitration.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 17, 2013
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013