A federal jury in Michigan found Ford Motor Co. guilty of breach of contract and misuse of trade secrets, awarding Ford $104.65 million (about 759 million yuan) in damages to Texas-based Versata Software Inc. on Wednesday after three weeks of trial testimony.
Ford spokeswoman Catherine Haggart said, “While we respect the jury’s decision, we do not believe the facts and the law support this outcome. Ford will appeal the verdict.”
The dispute centered on a 2004 contract between the two companies involving software developed by Versata to manage how car parts are configured during assembly. The jury found that Ford misused confidential information by reverse engineering Versata’s software for its own commercial use and using the software without a license.
According to the jury verdict, the jury awarded Ford $82.26 million for breach of contract and $22.39 million for misuse of trade secrets.
According to Dan Webb, Versata’s attorney, Ford hired Versata in the late 1990s to develop software designed to solve problems that led to costly recalls. The companies agreed to a 15-year contract in 2004 for Ford to use the software, but Ford terminated the agreement in 2014, saying they had developed their own software. Webb told the jury that Versata later discovered that Ford had “stabbed us in the back” by secretly developing software that contained Versata trade secrets.
The verdict has no impact on Ford’s current products or activities, said Haggett, a Ford spokesman, “The software has not been used since 2014, and it’s back-end enterprise software, last used nearly a decade ago, to support vehicle configuration and design and materials forecasting. It has never been used on a vehicle.”
However, Webb claims that what Ford says is simply not true and that the software is still in use today, which is the reason for the jurors’ verdict of punishment against Ford.
