TCS vigil mechanism is under Sebi watch

Markets regulator Sebi is looking into a complaint by a former employee of Tata Consultancy Services who has questioned the robustness of the IT service provider’s vigil mechanism that allows people to report fraud or unethical behaviour.

Phillippe Guionnet, a US-based client-facing executive at TCS, lodged the complaint in a letter to the regulator earlier this month.

Guionnet was the whistleblower in the EPIC software case that TCS lost in a US court in 2014, over unauthorised access to an internal website containing manuals and trade secrets. TCS has appealed the verdict in a higher court.


“Sebi has received a complaint against TCS and is examining it. We will ask the concerned company for its response and see if there is any violation,” an official from the regulator, who did not want to be named, told ET. An email query sent to a Sebi spokesperson did not elicit a response.

TCS says it has a whistle blower policy that encourages employees to report violations and that it deals with those complaints.

“The company has in place necessary policies and mechanism to deal with any concerns of unethical behaviour. Any concern raised by our employees or any such whistleblower are always dealt with appropriately, in accordance with the aforesaid policies and mechanism,” a TCS spokesperson said in a statement.

“The Company will appropriately deal with any query if and when raised by the concerned authority in this regard.”