EA Accused of Spying

TopWare CD-Service Wednesday served Electronic Arts at High Court in Mannheim, Germany, with an accusation that EA engaged in industrial espionage as well as violation of nondisclosure agreements.

According to TopWare, EA took sensitive information acquired during license negotiations for TopWare's Gold Games 3 compilation, and while sharing the information with two other software giants in Europe - Infogrames and Virgin - conspired to create its own compilations at the same price and release date as the Gold Games 3 compilation using the same products.

TopWare also claims that the individual licensors of the games included in the compilation were not informed that its products would appear in the new compilations.

TopWare says that its Gold Games series is Germany's most successful game compilation ever, with over 800,000 copies sold.