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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has dismissed a report by UK daily The Telegraph claiming that British retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) decided not to renew its $1 billion technology helpdesk contract with the Indian IT firm due to cyberattack-related lapses.

In a statement released on Sunday, October 27, to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), TCS termed the report “misleading” and “factually inaccurate,” clarifying that the contract value was overstated and that Marks & Spencer’s vendor decision was unrelated to any cyber incident. The clarification was issued under Regulation 30(11) of SEBI’s Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR) Regulations, 2015.

The company also pointed out that the service desk work formed only a small part of its overall relationship with M&S. “TCS continues to work on numerous other areas in its role as a strategic partner for Marks & Spencer and is proud of this longstanding partnership,” it said.

Addressing the cyberattack claim, TCS said it had carried out a full internal scan and confirmed that no vulnerabilities originated from its network. The company emphasised that it does not provide cybersecurity services to M&S - that responsibility lies with another vendor.

TCS added that both it and M&S had clarified that the renewal decision was part of a regular business process and unrelated to any cyber incident.

The Telegraph article, titled “M&S ousts Indian outsourcer accused of £300m cyberattack failures”, claimed that the British retailer suffered losses worth about £300 million and subsequently ended a $1 billion deal with TCS. However, TCS called the report “highly exaggerated and baseless”, saying the contract’s value was misrepresented. The Telegraph later removed the $1 billion figure from its report after both companies clarified the details.