A federal jury in Texas has ordered MoneyGram to pay rival outfit Western Union $16.53 million in damages for patent infringement.
Western Union filed the suit in May 2007, claiming MoneyGram Payment Systems' "FormFree" offering infringed patents related to its own "Money Transfer By Phone" service.
Western Union says its investigation had found that MoneyGram was "essentially replicating" its system, which is a way of staging money transfers through a call centre and completing transactions at an agent location.
The jury in the case returned a verdict in favour of Western Union on Thursday and awarded damages totalling $16.53 million.