The Costa Mesa office of law firm Theodora Oringher said today that it obtained a $26 million settlement for Orange County against India-based Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
The settlement is the largest amount recovered by Orange County in any lawsuit in 18 years, dating back to the fallout from the County’s 1994 bankruptcy, according to lead attorney Todd Theodora.
The county had filed a federal lawsuit against global IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services and its U.S. affiliate, Tata America International Corporation. The lawsuit was settled during a mediation session held in late July right before it would have gone to trial.
Tata paid Orange County $26 million in exchange for the county’s dismissal of its fraud and breach of contract complaint against the Tata companies. Tata will also dismiss its counterclaim against the county. Neither party admitted liability.
The lawsuit stemmed from the county selecting Tata in 2008 to develop a “state-of-the-art” property tax management system to replace its aging mainframe system, according to Theodora. The contract called for Tata to complete the software development project by June 2010 for $8 million. The county alleged that Tata took the two-year contract and tried to stretch it into a six year, $17 million contract through a series of misrepresentations to county staff and to the board of supervisors.
The county terminated the unfinished project in January 2013 and sued Tata for breach of contract and common law fraud.
