Case Study
Cracking Software Code in $100 Million Entertainment Industry Intellectual Property Theft Litigation
An independent film media and distribution company suspected a departing employee of stealing proprietary software code, leading to an arbitration against the employee. Experts from FTI Consulting’s Technology and Forensic & Litigation Consulting segments were retained to investigate the matter and provide an expert report to the court. The work resulted in a settlement agreement in favor of the client.
Situation
When the media company entered arbitration against the employee, it needed expert support to find evidence that would prove whether the employee had access to the proprietary code and misappropriated it as suspected. The client required detailed forensic analysis to determine whether the code was used on the employee’s application for a role with a competing organization, if the individual had access to the software code at pertinent times, identify the data and source of code transfer from the client’s systems, and compare files for verification and reporting.
Our Role
FTI Consulting decompiled the opposing party’s publicly available Android package and searched for artifacts that indicated copying of the client’s software code. Accordingly, the arbitrator provided FTI Consulting’s investigators with a 48-hour window of access to the opposing party’s source code repository for analysis.
Together, FTI Consulting’s digital forensics and dispute advisory services experts delivered the following:
- Forensic preservation of the client’s software code repository with defensible cloud forensic processes.
- A custom programmed .git code repository scanning tool capable of generating user behavior analytics, identifying statistical code anomalies and searching for copied code snippets in less than 24 hours.
- Scan of more than 1,100 code commits over a five-year period, quickly identifying the exact date when the client’s code was merged into the opposing party’s source code and when the opposing party started to scrub the data from its repository.
- Created code comparisons and visualizations to support completion of a conclusive, defensible expert report.
- Thorough analysis of the background of the technology, which showed that the copied functionality and assets were more than generic copying.
- Examination of deposition and expert testimony to demonstrate how the competitor failed to provide evidence that any component of the standard Software Development Life Cycle was followed, helping to refute claims that the software code was developed in-house rather than misappropriated from the client.
- Provided expert testimony coupled with technical research.
Our Impact
FTI Consulting’s forensic evidence collection and expert analysis were critical components in the client’s pursuit of $100 million in damages. The findings contributed to an undisclosed settlement related to the copying of the client’s software code.
Unmatched expertise and solution development for complex software code analysis, expert reporting and testimony and economic valuation related to technical IP.