A South African non-profit organisation is taking on one of India’s biggest multinational companies in an IP appropriation case.
Collaborative Stakeholder Movement (CSM) is taking legal action against Bangalore-based IT giant Wipro, chaired by Azim H Premji.
The dispute centres on a South African CIO training initiative, which CSM says was offered to Wipro for exclusive sponsorship, and was set to launch in September 2014.
Martin Humphries, chief executive of CSM, comments: “We had entered a partnership with Wipro, based on our ideas and our IP, but suddenly they seemed to have cold feet.
“The next we knew, they had launched an identical training scheme to the one we at CSM had devised, partnering this time with the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS).”
Humphries says CSM has directly approached Premji, and has held talks with the Wipro team in Johannesburg, but there has been no meeting of minds.
“The training course which we designed ticks every box for economic development in South Africa – with a focus on job creation, skills development, black economic empowerment and international partnership in the context of the BRICS.”
Wipro has responded with the following statement: “Wipro adheres to the highest standards of integrity and ethical corporate practices. These allegations are baseless and Wipro will defend itself vigorously.”