It was a bad week in London for IBM, the company that promises to help create ‘Smarter Cities’ with its technology.

On Monday, after IBM took control of the capital’s congestion charge payments system from previous operator Capita, a system crash prevented drivers from making online payments for nine hours.

The company said the interruption occurred as a result of a major upgrade to the payments systems, although retail and mobile payments were still functional.

On the previous Friday, it emerged that Southwark Council is seeking £700,000 damages from the computing giant for a master data management implementation that it alleges is ‘unsatisfactory’. IBM says the allegations “have no merit”.