A one page summary of a lawsuit - Essay Example

Oracle- SAP Lawsuit The oracle –SAP lawsuit started back in 2007. Oracle is a technology company which deals majorly in software. In 2007, it was the third largest software company in the Unites States. In the same year, Oracle filed a lawsuit against SAP. Oracle’s complaint was that TomorrowNow, an associate to Oracle, used accounts belonging to former customers of Oracle to make the available to SAP. This was allegedly a move on the part of Oracle to get rid of the upcoming competition, in this case, SAP owing to their new position in the market.

SAP admitted to this appropriation and termed it as “illegal downloading”. SAP vowed to install the required changes in their current system which to them, was operation was as a result of negligence in the operational insight of TomorrowNow. The defense in this case was that the fault had nothing to do with SAP employees. SAP is quoted as saying they consider illegal downloading as illegal and unacceptable and would never condone such actions. Two years later, a judge ruled that SAP must pay Oracle 1.

3 billion in damages. The crime was copyright infringement. SAP went back to court to appeal over the ruling. SAP argued that the amount they were liable to pay was the money lost by Oracle due to the customers that moved to TommorowNow and not the amount suggested by Oracle. Several motions were filed with the judge in a bid to ensure that a fairer and just sum was charged. Over a year later, a judge overruled the judgment terming it as “grossly excessive”. SAP had previously argued that the damages paid were in excess and they should have paid only 40 million dollars in damages to Oracle to cover lost profits (Niccolai, p.1). The verdict was read in Oakland, California in a U.

S District Court. The case, which has taken place over four years, will now open even more court cases as Oracle will definitely fight this overruling. This will, however, take place only if Oracle rejects the 217 million that the judge ruled should have been the original damages received by the company. My opinion is that the original ruling was too much as the damages imposed on Oracle could not have amounted to 1.3 billion. The case would have opened additional cases and set the pace for more court cases of the same nature to be developed, costing a lot of companies a lot of money.

Works CitedNiccolai, James. “Re: Update: Oracle Awarded $1.3 Billion in SAP Lawsuit.”Computerworld .Computerworld, 2010 .Web. 3rd Oct 2011.