The Court of Appeals of Virginia has reversed the $2BN verdict in favor of Appian in its ongoing legal dispute with Pegasystems.
The dispute dates back to 2020, when Appian filed a lawsuit against Pegasystems, accusing the company of corporate espionage and misappropriating Appian trade secrets.
To do so, Pega allegedly used multiple infiltration tactics, such as recruiting a spy with inside secrets, as part of an operation reportedly called "Project Crush".
Two years later, the courts sided with Appian, slamming Pega’s conduct as "willful and malicious" and handing down a $2BN jury verdict. That represented the largest damages verdict in the history of Virginia courts.
Yet, the Virginia Court of Appeals has overturned the verdict and granted Pegasystems a new trial.
In doing so, Judge Frank K. Friedman agreed with Pega’s motion that the trial courts made a "series of errors" relating to jury instructions and the evidence presented.
As per the latter, the judge seemed to question why the court prevented Pega from presenting demos of earlier versions of its software to prove it hadn’t copied anything across from Appian.
Indeed, in published court documents, Judge Friedman shared the opinion:
The trial court also abused its discretion by refusing to permit Pega to attempt to authenticate its software evidence and, as a consequence, by excluding Pega’s software—a principal means of demonstrating it did not steal secrets...
Nevertheless, the judge dismissed Pega’s claims that its CRM and process automation rival failed to prove the misappropriation of trade secrets legally.
An Appian spokesperson told Reuters that the business would file an appeal against the reversal of the $2BN verdict, but the company has not yet shared a comment with CX Today.
