Credit card security firm claims rival profited from its system

A DUBLIN company which claims it developed an anti-fraud credit card system has claimed another company wrongly used confidential information about that system to enhance its own product.

Snapcount Ltd claims Orbiscom Ltd’s actions ultimately led to its €100 million sale to Mastercard earlier this year.

Snapcount alleges that Orbiscom breached non-disclosure agreements between the two companies in using confidential information about the Snapcount Verification System (SVS), an anti-fraud system for credit card holders, in Orbiscom’s ControlPay Platform product.

It is claimed both companies had been in negotiations about a draft licence agreement for the SVS system but no agreement was ultimately reached.

It is claimed Orbiscom subsequently promoted its ControlPay Platform to Mastercard resulting in Mastercard paying some €100 million for the defendant company about January last. Snapcount claims the value of its technology, as disclosed to Orbiscom, reflected a significant proportion of that purchase price.

The proceedings by Snapcount, previously called Clip Ltd, of Capel Street, Dublin, were admitted to the Commercial Court yesterday by Mr Justice Peter Kelly. The action is against Orbiscom Ltd, Baggot Street, Dublin.

Jonathan Newman, for Snapcount, said his side believes its claim is valued at well over the €1 million threshold of the Commercial Court given the sale of Orbiscom to Mastercard for €100 million. Counsel for Orbiscom said his side will meet the case and would be seeking particulars of claims related to alleged confidential information.

It is claimed both companies were involved in the development of solutions for the payment card industry and had, in January 2002, entered into a written non-disclosure agreement connected with negotiations about a potential joint collaboration.

Snapcount claims, on foot of that agreement, it disclosed confidential information abouts its SVS system to the defendant. It claims the SVS system enabled credit and debit card customers to protect themselves against fraud.

Snapcount claims, after the cessation of collaboration between the sides, the defendant used the technical content of the confidential information provided to it to incorporate the SVS in the defendant’s own ControlPay platform which was later promoted to issuing banks.

It is claimed Mastercard was among those to whom the product was promoted and Mastercard later announced it was integrating the ControlPay platform into its InControl processing platform.