Thermax settles IP row with Purolite

Thermax, the Pune-based energy and environmental solutions provider, will pay $38 million (Rs 176 crore) to Philadelphia-based Purolite in an out-of-court settlement over a five-year-old intellectual property dispute. The amount will be settled in four installments of $9.5 million each this year.

Purolite, a global supplier of ion exchange resins, filed a suit against Thermax in the federal district court in Philadelphia in May 2005, accusing four of its former employees, who had joined Thermax earlier that year, of stealing its trade secrets. Thermax later suspended one of the four employees.

MS Unnikrishnan, managing director, Thermax, said it would book the losses as an extraordinary item this fiscal. The settlement would have no bearing on its resin business. Ion exchange resins, which are used in water treatment, contribute $10 million to Thermax’s US subsidiary’s turnover of $17 million.