Corporate espionage is entering a new era

For espionage of the cloak-and-dagger variety, it is hard to beat John le Carré or Ian Fleming. But the world of corporate spying has plenty of drama, too. Take the alleged skulduggery in a recent court case involving two American software firms. In May a jury awarded Appian, based in Virginia, $2bn in damages after it had accused Pegasystems, from Massachusetts, of illegally snooping on it to gain a competitive edge. The trial revealed that Pegasystems executives had referred to a contractor hired to obtain ingredients of Appian’s secret sauce as “our spy” in internal documents, and had dubbed the overall effort “Project Crush”. Pegasystems, whose share price slumped after the ruling, and which is set to face a barrage of class-action suits from disgruntled investors, has vowed to appeal against the “unjust” decision.