The settlement sees BSkyB get £230m in damages and a further £40m in interest and tax – awarded in February this year. The balance corresponds to the legal fees incurred by BSkyB since the start of the legal battle.

BSkyB awarded the CRM implementation project to EDS back in 2000, but the contract was terminated in 2002. While the original deal was worth only £48m it ended up costing some £265m and six years to implement.

BSkyB’s victory comes as the National Audit Office (NAO) has called for a mandatory system of safeguards for major IT projects to halt projects running over budget.

The NAO wants a system that will provide necessary project information to the various parties involved. The new system of assurance would need to be compulsory, focused on outcomes, capable of collecting plenty of evidence from those involved in projects and triggering interventions where necessary.

It also needs to be capable of "systematically propagating the lessons learned". The safeguards would contribute to reduce the financial risk to the taxpayer and increase the likelihood of successful project delivery.

Indeed, the Central Government has become associated with big IT projects that run over-budget by millions of pounds and fail to be delivered on time, and the NAO said previous attempts to stop this happening have not worked.

In the current economic environment the safeguards become all the more relevant, especially with more systems such as the NHS’ centralised electronic medical records, ID systems, etc. being implemented or in the works.