THE computer-games publisher behind Lara Croft, SCI Entertainment, is being investigated by police in Hungary amid allegations of theft and sabotage made by the companies contracted to produce its next big game, Battlestation: Midway.

MGE and Mithis, the companies contracted to develop the game, have filed complaints with police alleging that SCI broke into offices in Hungary and stole software, including the source codes of the game.

Dr Versitz Piroska, the lawyer acting for MGE and Mithis, said: “A number of complaints have been filed with the Budapest police with regard to the illegal removal of software and hardware connected to the Battlestation: Midway Joint Task Force and other games . . . (the complaints relate to) unlawful penetration into Mithis’s computers, copying, sabotage and deletion of games’ data and infringement of IP rights.”

SCI said it had acted “completely professionally and complied with all its contractual obligations. Any allegation to the contrary is denied absolutely”.

A police spokesman in Budapest, Balazs Zako, said: “We are indeed conducting two investigations on two separate subjects, on suspicion of breaching of authorship- rights law.”

Both sides say they own the intellectual property rights to the game.

SCI, which publishes games but outsources their manufacture, contracted MGE in 2003 to develop Battlestation: Midway, a game based on naval warfare in the second world war.

MGE, an offshore company, in turn hired Mithis, a Hungarian specialist, to provide the skilled staff to develop the all-important source codes. The game was developed in Mithis’s offices in Hungary.

Relations between SCI and its subcontractors grew sour towards the end of 2005. SCI said MGE and Mithis were underperforming, so it went to the offices in Hungary and took the source codes and gave them to another developer.

A spokesman for SCI said: “In November 2005 the developer (MGE) failed to deliver on its contractual obligations so we exercised our normal contractual right to take over the development of the software, which we have successfully done.”

SCI has not mentioned the issue to shareholders beyond a short statement at the interims on March 31, which said: “Over the last six months we have established a new development studio in Budapest.

“This team is currently working on the completion of Battlestation: Midway, which we plan to release in the 2007 financial year.”

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