SAP Ordered To Pay Interest On Oracle Fine

To add insult to injury, a federal court judge has ruled that SAP has to pay its bitter rival Oracle, the prejudgement interest on its $1.3 billion (£843 million) copyright infringement verdict.

However the one spot of good news was that it was about $195 million (£126 million) less than the amount sought by Oracle.

After it won the month long jury-trial case in the Oakland, California federal district court, Oracle had asked presiding Judge Phyllis Hamilton for about $211 million (£137 million) in interest from its long-time competitor.

Interest Charge

SAP, the largest enterprise application provider in the world, contended in court documents that it shouldn’t have to pay interest on the $1.3 billion (£843 million) judgement, which already is the largest intellectual property-connected financial penalty in US legal history.

Sometimes in cases that involve a jury award, interest is awarded to the plaintiff dating back to when the case started in proceedings.

SAP lawyers subsequently asked Hamilton to use a different methodology should she decide interest was necessary. The judge agreed to use SAP’s formula without detailing the actual amount SAP would have to pay.

In an email to eWEEK, SAP spokesman Saswato Das revealed the number to be about $16.5 million (£10.6 million). An Oracle spokesperson declined comment in answer to an eWEEK query.

“While we believe that Oracle should only be awarded damages, we appreciate that the Court agreed with SAP on the proper calculation of interest in this case which dramatically lowered the amount,” Das told eWEEK. “The interest the Court ordered, based on the statutorily-set interest rate of .3% and the accrual period of 29 September, 2006 through 23 December, 2010, is approximately $16.5 million, rather than the over $200 million Oracle was seeking.”

Oracle, in its lawsuit filed in 2007, claimed that SAP – through a since-liquidated affiliate division called TommorowNow – illegally downloaded more than 8 million instances of its customer-support software and hundreds of thousands of pages of supporting documentation from one of its Web sites, then used those tools to lure some 350 customers away from Oracle and over to SAP.

Question Of Money

SAP took corporate responsibility for the misdeeds in a court document filed 28 October and officially apologised on 16 November.

SAP already has paid $120 million (£78 million) for court costs to Oracle and had argued that another $40 million (£26 million) in restitution would constitute a fair amount. Oracle originally claimed in court documents that its lost assets were valued at $2.15 billion (£1.4 billion), although CEO Larry Ellison testified in court 8 November that $4 billion (£2.6 billion) was closer to the actual amount.

Ultimately, the eight-person jury settled on the $1.3 billion figure. Now there’s another $16.5 million for SAP to pay out.