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Court tosses Infosys, Apple visa fraud case for second time

A federal judge in California last week dismissed a lawsuit accusing Apple and India-based IT services firm Infosys of engaging in a visa scam.

The lawsuit was lodged in 2016 by Carl Krawitt, a former Apple and Infosys employee who claimed the two firms conspired to fraudulently obtain B-1 visas rather than H-1Bs for two Infosys employees brought to the US from India to conduct a six-week training course for Apple.

B-1 visas allow nonimmigrants to enter the United States temporarily for business and are unlimited in number. Meanwhile, H1-B visas allow employment in the US for a set duration and are subject to an annual cap and are more expensive to obtain.

Krawitt worked at Apple as independent contractor for Infosys from September 2014 to January 2015. He then worked as a contractor reporting directly to Apple managers from March 2015 to October 2015. During that time, he raised concerns to managers at both companies over an agreement under which Infosys would provide live training sessions to Apple employees. According to court documents, Krawitt alleged the companies “knew Infosys lacked sufficient foreign nationals on H1-B visas to legally perform the classroom training sessions at Apple,” among other complaints.

Ultimately, the court held “the two trainers acted within the scope of their B-1 visas in providing training sessions to Apple.”

The case had been dismissed in October 2018 with leave for Krawitt to amend his complaint. Last week’s dismissal precludes amendments, though the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News [1]reports [1] Krawitt intends to appeal the ruling.

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