SAP to pay $20 million in Oracle criminal probe

German business software maker SAP, yesterday agreed to pay $20 million to resolve a criminal probe into allegations that its US subsidiary TomorrowNow downloaded millions of files from its arch rival Oracle.

SAP's TommorrowNow (closed in 2008), was charged with 12 criminal counts by the US Department of Justice last week, for corporate theft, alleging it illegally downloaded masses of Oracle customer service materials and passed those documents to SAP.

The plea deal, which is expected to be formalised in today's court hearing, comes just a week after a US court overturned an earlier $1.3-billion copyright infringement case awarded to Oracle against SAP. (See: US court overturns $1.3-bn copyright infringement verdict against SAP)

In the keenly watched four year-old case, last week, US District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, reduced an earlier $1.3-billion copyright infringement case award to $272 million and granted SAP's motion for a new trial to set damages if Oracle rejects the new verdict.

The ruling is the latest chapter in a case that dates to 2007, when Oracle sued TomorrowNow for accessing its computer network and illegally downloaded and assembled a storehouse of stolen Oracle intellectual property comprising copyrighted software and other material.

SAP initially denied liability, but shortly before the trial started it admitted that TomorrowNow had illicitly downloaded data from Oracle so as to offer support services, that resulted in a trial to determine the scale of damages SAP should pay.