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

The allegation is that Winsopia sent an unscrubbed DSS dump, containing code fragments forming part of an ICA Program, to LzLabs.

By email dated 16 May 2016, Mr Rastall raised a query regarding the export of IBM stubs by Winsopia:

“I have been asked to understand and collate some information on DMA output files (payloads) that have been extracted by Winsopia staff and transmitted that contain modules with unchanged IBM stubs. I am not interested in Payloads that contain Winsopia stubs only.

I am making the assumption that all such DMA payloads transmitted have been sent to Christian only, please correct me if I am wrong.

I am also making the assumption, that with most (if not all) of such payloads the destination has been either the Winsopia PizzaBox or a Winsopia NUC. (but via Christian).

I need to know if any DMA Payloads containing IBM stubs has been loaded on other systems outside Winsopia.”

Mr Wehrli of LzLabs responded on the same day as follows:

“What do you mean with other? I always check that only stubbed libraries are included. The[y] libraries also always have the same "stubbed", on it. If there has been an incident where I slipped something through which should not be in there I need to know.

Every request that ends up in a DMA dump has a PRB corresponding to it, i also always request stubbs and leave a note that only stubbs to be included.

During the [customer] exercise one of the DSS dumps slipped the normal library in by accident. I have informed Dev's to not use this and deleted it from SVN, and replaced it with a stubbed one, and also for this we only use the stubbed one.”

The experts were unable to locate the material DSS dump because, as stated by Mr Wehrli above, it was deleted on 16 May 2016. As a result, they were not able to determine what the unscrubbed load modules comprised.

There is insufficient evidence on this item for the court to determine whether the material sent by Winsopia to LzLabs contained an ICA Program, or part thereof. Even if it did, on the very limited evidence available, it is likely that any slip would have been inadvertent and temporary. There is no evidence that the unscrubbed load modules were used by LzLabs. It follows that IBM have not established any breach of the ICA in respect of this item.