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

IGZXNE3N is an IBM-supplied CSECT that is bound into a user load module as a stub routine and provided by IBM in the SCEELKED library with z/OS. As such, it is an ICA Program for the purpose of the ICA.

On 8 November 2019 DR-4472 was opened, requesting Winsopia to compile NIST NC tests with the COBOL 6.2 compiler. Winsopia duly sent the requested load modules and compiler listings. On 9 March 2020 DR-4752 was opened, noting that one of the modules contained a CSECT called IGZXNE3N that should be redacted during the CPX export process and therefore should be added to the scrub list. Subsequently, the CSECT was added to the scrub list.

It is common ground that the unscrubbed load module was sent by Winsopia to LzLabs. The experts agreed in their second joint statement that the SDM created its version of the IGZXNE3N runtime on 11 March 2020, two days after the DR date. Professor Donaldson carried out a review of the relevant SDM source code file. He concluded that the SDM version did not contain any relevant IBM material and appeared to have been independently produced by LzLabs. He accepted that DR-4472 was useful in determining the format of parameters to be provided as input to the function but he found no evidence that the DR was of any further use. However, in cross-examination, Professor Donaldson accepted that, in addition to the compiler listings supplied through DR-4472, by decompiling the unscrubbed module or stub, one could glean information about the parameters.

The proximity of time between the identification of the unscrubbed CSECTon 9 March 2020 and the SDM implementation of the IGZXNE3N runtime routine on 11 March 2020 indicates that it is likely that it did inform LzLabs in its development of an equivalent to the IBM runtime on the SDM.

It follows that the transfer of this ICA Program out of Winsopia to LzLabs amounted to a breach of the ICA.