HT-2021-000363 - [2025] EWHC 532 (TCC)

Fecha: 10-Mar-2025

Heading

Neutral Citation Number: [2025] EWHC 532 (TCC)

Case No: HT-2021-000363

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES

TECHNOLOGY AND CONSTRUCTION COURT (KBD)

Royal Courts of Justice

Rolls Building

London, EC4A 1NL

Date: 10 March 2025

Before:

Mrs Justice O’Farrell DBE

Between:

IBM UNITED KINGDOM LIMITED	Claimant
- and -
(1) LZLABS GmbH (a company incorporated in Switzerland) (2) WINSOPIA LIMITED (3) LZLABS LIMITED (4) MARK JONATHAN CRESSWELL (5) THILO ROCKMANN (6) JOHN JAY MOORES	Defendants

Nicholas Saunders KC, Matthew Lavy KC, Fred Hobson KC, James Weale, Laura Wright, Henry Edwards, Alex Taylor & Jacob Haddad (instructed by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan UK LLP) for the Claimant

Roger Stewart KC, Mark Vanhegan KC, Thomas Ogden, Jaani Riordan, George McDonald & Joshua Marshall (instructed by Clifford Chance LLP) for the Defendants

Reading dates: 22^nd, 23^rd, 24^th, 25^th & 26^th April 2024

Hearing dates: 29^th, 30^th April 2024

1^st, 2^nd, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 13^th, 14^th, 15^th, 16^th, 20^th, 21^st, 22^nd, 23^rd,

28^th, 29^th, 30^th May 2024

3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 10^th, 11^th, 12^th, 13^th, 17^th, 18^th, 19^th June 2024

1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th July 2024

Circulation of draft Judgment: 21^st February 2025

JUDGMENT

This judgment was handed down remotely at 10am on Monday 10^th March 2025 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

Section	Subject	Paragraphs
I	Introduction	1 – 16
II	Background to the dispute	17 – 135
	IBM Mainframes	17 – 35
	Software Defined Mainframe (“the SDM”)	36 – 39
	Hercules	40 – 42
	Neon litigation	43 – 47
	Formation of LzLabs and Winsopia	48 – 63
	The ICA	64 – 75
	Development of the SDM and the clean room procedures	76 – 110
	Launch of the SDM	111 – 119
	Project Eiger	120
	Further development of the SDM	121 – 128
	Audit request and termination	129 – 135
III	The Proceedings	136 – 146
	The issues	138
	Factual witnesses	139 – 141
	Expert evidence	142 – 145
IV	Construction of the ICA	147 – 272
	Approach to construction of the ICA	149
	Scope of the licence	150 – 160
	The ICA Programs	161 – 175
	Customer applications	176 – 184
	Licensed program specifications (“LPSs”)	185 – 193
	Independent software vendors (“ISVs”)	194 – 195
	Debugging tools	196 – 207
	Restrictions on use of ICA Programs	208 – 213
	Legislative framework	214 – 223
	Berne Convention	224
	TRIPS	225
	WIPO	226
	General principles from Convention and Treaties	227
	Software Directive	228 – 233
	CDPA	234 – 239
	Applicable legal principles	240 – 270
	Conclusions on ICA construction	271
V	Alleged breaches of the ICA	273
	Item 1 – IGZCUST	274 – 310
	Item 2 – LMD	311 – 345
	Item 3 – CICS Control Blocks Document	356 – 380
	Item 4 – EXEC DLI	381 – 382
	Item 5 – IBM Binder Software	383 – 401
	Compiler listings – summary of dispute	402 – 406
	Item 6 – IGZCIVL COBOL runtime module	407 – 423
	Item 7 – CICS Translators	424 – 435
	Item 8 – Floating point rounding rules	436 – 453
	Item 9 – IBM PL/I Compiler	454 – 469
	Item 10 – XML Parse statements	470 – 483
	Item 11 – COBOL initialisation, branching and I/O declaratives	484 – 504
	Item 12 – PL/I condition handling	505 – 522
	Use of de-bugging tools – summary of dispute	523 – 524
	Item 13 – CICS-to-CICS communications	525 – 544
	Item 14 – AMBLIST analysis of CICS stubs	545 – 544
	Item 15 – Colesoft XDC and COBOL initialisation	555 – 568
	Item 16 – XDC and IMS	569 – 584
	Item 17 – SLIP traps and CICS	586 – 596
	Item 18 – SLIP traps and COBOL	597 – 605
	Macros and Copybooks - introduction	606 – 612
	Macros – summary of dispute	613 – 614
	Item 19 – DR 3246	615
	Item 20 – DR 10237	616 – 617
	Item 21 – DR 2753	618
	Item 22 – DR 2771	619
	Item 23 – DR 2796	620
	Item 24 – DR 3280	621
	Item 25 – DR 4281	622
	Item 26 – DR 4322	623
	Item 27 – DR 0847	624
	Macros - discussion	625 – 640
	Copybooks – summary of dispute	641 – 642
	Item 28 – DR 715	643 – 649
	Item 29 – DR 753	650 – 653
	Item 30 – DR 756	654 – 658
	Copybooks - discussion	659 – 660
	Transferring unscrubbed materials	661 – 674
	Item 31 – Epiphany	675
	Item 32 – Db2 catalog table metadata	676 – 688
	Item 33 – DSS dump	689 – 693
	Item 34 – Kednos	694 – 702
	Item 35 – CSECTS omitted from scrubbing	703 – 720
	Items 36 & 42 – unscrubbed CSECTs	721 – 729
	Items 37 & 40 – IMS PROCLIB & DLIBATCH	730 – 739
	Item 38 – DFHEI1 module	740 – 750
	Item 39 – IGZXANE	751 – 754
	Item 41 – IGZXNE3N	755 – 759
	Item 43 – CEEBETBL, CEEBLLST, IBMPINPL & CEESG*	760 – 771
	Item 44 – DR 4617	772 – 776
	Item 45 – DR 171	777 – 783
	Item 46 – scrubbing failures	784 – 800
	Item 47 - @@TRGLOC CSECT	801 – 803
	Item 48 – PARMLIB & PROCLIB	804 – 807
	Use outside Enterprise and beyond Designated Machine	808 – 810
	Item 49 – Brad Taylor	811 – 825
	Item 50 – Winsopia Pizzabox	826 – 831
	Item 51 – Justin Bendich	832 – 837
	Conclusions on technical breaches	838 - 844
VI	Wrongful procurement of breach	845 – 936
	Introduction	845 851
	Applicable legal principles	852 – 861
	LzLabs	863 – 888
	LzLabs UK	889 – 897
	Mr Cresswell and Mr Rockmann	898 – 916
	Mr Moores	917 – 935
	Summary	936
VII	Unlawful means conspiracy	937 – 960
	Introduction	937 – 940
	Legal principles and application	941 – 947
	Knowledge of unlawfulness	948 – 959
	Summary	960
VIII	Audit and Termination	961 – 983
	Introduction	961 – 962
	Validity of the audit request	963 – 979
	Validity of termination	980 – 987
IX	Limitation	988 – 1119
	Introduction	988 – 990
	Contractual limitation	991 -1007
	Statutory limitation	1008 -1012
	Deliberate concealment	1013 – 1062
	Section 32(1)(b) finding	1063 – 1068
	Section 32(2) finding	1068 – 1072
	Actual or constructive knowledge – legal principles	1073 – 1076
	Date of knowledge issues	1077 – 1081
	ICA 2013	1082 – 1088
	Mr Knight 2017	1089 – 1093
	Mr Anzani 2018	1094 -1118
	Summary	1119 - 1120
X	Conclusions	1121 - 1122