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Appian Awarded $2.036 Billion in Damages Against Pegasystems Inc.
Appian receives verdict from Fairfax County, Virginia jury holding Pegasystems liable for trade secret misappropriation and violation of the Virginia Computer
About this update from Appian Corporation
[{"type":"text","content":"Appian receives verdict from Fairfax County, Virginia jury holding Pegasystems liable for trade secret misappropriation and violation of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act\nMCLEAN, Va., May 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Appian (NASDAQ: APPN) announced today that it has received a verdict from a jury in the Circuit Court for Fairfax County, Virginia, awarding it $2.036 billion in damages from Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA) for trade secret misappropriation. The jury also found that Pegasystems violated the Virginia Computer Crimes Act. The jury further found Pegasystems' misappropriation of Appian's trade secrets to be willful and malicious. Appian brought the case to trial to ensure the protection of its proprietary intellectual property, including its trade secrets.\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n\"We are very grateful that the jury held Pegasystems accountable for its wrongful conduct,\" stated Christopher Winters, General Counsel at Appian. \"We put forward strong evidence that Appian trade secrets were misappropriated by Pegasystems. The award of substantial damages to Appian is entirely appropriate given the nature and extent of what Pegasystems did.\"\nDuring the seven-week trial, Appian presented evidence that Pegasystems hired an employee of a government contractor (the \"Contractor\"), to provide Pegasystems with access to Appian's software as a part of an effort to learn how to better compete against Appian. In hiring the Contractor, Pegasystems instructed its third-party contracting service to recruit someone who was not \"loyal\" to Appian. Appian provided evidence that the Contractor, who worked as a developer in the Appian software under a government contract, violated his employer's code of conduct and his employer's agreement with Appian by providing access to an Appian competitor.\nAppian put forward evidence that the Contractor passed trade secret information to Pegasystems to enable its employees to build competitive features and train Pegasystems' sales team to better compete against Appian. During the proceedings, Alan Trefler, Pegasystems' Founder and CEO, admitted that it was \"inappropriate'' for Pegasystems employees to have hired the Contractor, and that the Contractor \"apparently did things for which he was not entitled.\"\nThe Contractor, referred to as a \"spy\" internally at Pegasystems, helped Pegasystems ge...