By Dawn Kawamoto, 30 July 2008 12:17
NEWS
Oracle upped the ante in its lawsuit against rival SAP this week, claiming in an amended complaint that SAP's CEO and other top executives were aware of alleged illegal downloading of proprietary software and documents before, during and after its acquisition of third-party support and maintenance company TomorrowNow.
The amended complaint broadens the allegations raised by Oracle in its initial lawsuit in March 2007. In that initial lawsuit, Oracle alleged that SAP acquired TomorrowNow to not only woo away its PeopleSoft customers who needed maintenance and support, but to also use those customers' contracts with Oracle to access its proprietary support software and documents beyond what those customers' contracts allowed.
According to the amended lawsuit, after conducting depositions and gathering documents in the case, Oracle alleges SAP CEO Henning Kagermann and SAP's executive board of directors knowingly made the acquisition of TomorrowNow without having confirmed that TomorrowNow was not infringing on Oracle's intellectual property rights.
A spokesman for SAP said: "This amended complaint beats many of the allegations of Oracle's amended complaint filed last year. These are strictly allegations and have not been proved. We will have a filing by 11 September, in response to this recent amended complaint."
He added that SAP "will not litigate the case in the press".
The case is set to go to trial in the US District Court for the Northern District of California in February 2010.
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