Oracle to Receive $1.3 Billion From SAP Lawsuit

By Richard Gibson
Nov 24 2010

SAP, an US based software development firm, was ordered this morning to pay Oracle, another software firm in the US, $1.3 billion to settle a lawsuit.

The suit stems from SAP downloading Oracle software from their website and using it to build a customer support business. With the business they were providing paid support to customers who were using the Oracle based software systems. Oracle soon filed a lawsuit, asking for $3 billion in damages.

Throughout the yearlong court battle SAP offered several settlements to Oracle, hoping to save on the costly legal fees of a full-blown legal battle. However, Oracle, along with their CEO Larry Ellison, was not willing to entertain any of the offers that were laid on the table.

The matter of guilt or innocence did not come into question with the litigation. SAP admitted early on that they were wrong in downloading the software and were willing to settle the case out of court. However, their lost offer for a settlement was $75 million, well below the asking price from Oracle.

For the past several weeks jurors in the case were hearing testimony from both sides. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison took the stand and pointed the finger at former SAP CEO Leo Apotheker, who is currently heading up HP.

Ellison contends that the decision to download the software and use it to make money came from the highest levels inside SAP.  Apotheker contends that he did not know about the incident at the beginning and ordered the service shut down when he found out.