In an amended court filing that cited internal SAP documents, Oracle said four SAP board members, including current co-chief executive Henning Kagermann, received a confidential document that "made clear TomorrowNow did not operate legally." BOSTON (Reuters) - Oracle Corp (ORCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) amended its lawsuit
against SAP AG (SAPG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) on Monday, saying SAP executive board
members were warned that its TomorrowNow unit was engaged in
corporate theft before SAP bought TomorrowNow.
Oracle sued the German software maker in March 2007,
accusing its TomorrowNow software maintenance services business
of illegally using customer log-ins to steal copyrighted
materials from Oracle's website. Oracle said last month the
damages it seeks from SAP could top $1 billion.
In an amended court filing that cited internal SAP
documents, Oracle said four SAP board members, including
current co-chief executive Henning Kagermann, received a
confidential document on January 7, 2005, that "made clear
TomorrowNow did not operate legally."
It is the first time that Oracle has charged that top
executives at rival SAP had knowledge of the corporate theft
carried out by TomorrowNow -- both before and after the company
was acquired by SAP on Jan 19, 2005.
"SAP unlawfully accessed, copied and wrongfully used
Oracle's enterprise software applications and software and
support materials. It did so with the knowledge and consent of
the SAP AG executive board of directors," Oracle said in the
complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
SAP spokesman Saswato Das said his company would respond to
the allegations in a legal filing that is due by September 11.
"Our filing is the most appropriate place to respond to
Oracle's allegations," Das said. "Ultimately it is the court
that will determine the facts and the remedies in this case and
we prefer to conduct the discussion through the legal system."
"INAPPROPRIATE"
He said that Kagermann was not immediately available for
comment. SAP is scheduled to release quarterly results on
Tuesday.
SAP said last week that it would shut down TomorrowNow
after an unsuccessful bid to sell the company.
The German company had disclosed in July 2007 that
employees of the Texas-based TomorrowNow had made "some
inappropriate downloads" of materials from Oracle's website.
SAP had said that employees of the parent company did not
have access to Oracle's intellectual property.
But Redwood City, California-based Oracle, in its amended
complaint which cited court depositions and internal SAP
documents, charged that employees of TomorrowNow and its parent
company accessed each other's computer systems and shared
content via e-mail.
Oracle claimed that one of those systems, SAPnet, allowed
employees of the parent to assist in "illegal development
efforts" by TomorrowNow.
"At the time Oracle filed its lawsuit, SAP had before it a
detailed road map for connecting virtually every piece of the
SAP (TomorrowNow) network to the SAP AG network," Oracle said.
TomorrowNow provides technical support for customers using
PeopleSoft and JD Edwards software. SAP bought the company in
2005 after Oracle bought PeopleSoft, which in turn had acquired
JD Edwards, aiming to persuade PeopleSoft and JD Edwards
customers to switch over to SAP's software.
SAP, the world's biggest maker of software that helps
companies manages business processes from accounting to
manufacturing, said it is working directly with more than 225
TomorrowNow customers to shut down its operations by October
31.
(Editing by Brian Moss)
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