U.S. Officials Charge Oracle with Fraud
PrintThe U.S. Department of Justice has Oracle in its sights and is slamming the software maker with a lawsuit accusing the company of committing fraud in conjunction with a government contract worth millions of dollars, CNET reports.
"We take seriously allegations that government contractor has dealt dishonestly with the United States," said Tony West, assistant attorney general for the civil division of the Department of Justice, in a statement. "When contractors misrepresent their business practices to the government, taxpayers suffers."
According the lawsuit, Oracle's government customers, such as the State Department, Energy Department, and even the Justice Department, to name a few, received deals "far inferior" to Oracle's commercial clients. The lawsuit goes on to allege that Oracle misrepresented its true commercial sales practices, thereby defrauding the U.S.
Image Credit: NEC
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adamwrightus
August 03, 2010 at 10:39am
maybe the government should be sued for misrepresenting their relationship with the public......their deals have been far inferior for way too long of a time
Personally, It seems like the government's doing this b/c they've got some kind of beef with Oracle that seem pretty unfounded, the government should look at all its fraud before it goes after Oracle like this.
If the government wins, that'll be too bad because Oracle might want to compensate for money lost by charging for previously free software, as in software that was held by another company(Sun) that was just bought up by Oracle-meaning no free ride on Open Office-which would be too bad because that's part of the appeal to Open Office. Hope it doesn't come to that, but it's not out of the realm of possibility esp. if the government wins this case.
Hopefully Oracle can counter-sue for defamation of character or something, in addition to winning.
I Jedi
August 03, 2010 at 9:20am
I first heard about this a few months from here, and I'll say it once more. Why does it matter? The government blows millions of tax-paying dollars everyday, so why should the government play double standards here with Oracle? If anything, I think the American people should sue the government for fraud and incompetence when it comes to THEIR money. How often, in the news, do we hear about politicians taking expensive trips overseas for a diplomatic visit, or something to that affect? Just last week, it was reported that several tens-of-thousands of dollars was spent at a resort by a group of Congressmen. With the way the economy is, does the U.S. government feel it is truly in their capital machine's best interest to hurt one of the major IT companies? I'm not just talking money wise, but their (Oracle) image to the public, too.
violian
August 03, 2010 at 1:59pm
Totally agree with you there, if anything, it's the government that's corrupt. Because the person in interest for the gov't should've done their research first on what the cost should've been before going into binding contract. Who dives into a multi-billion dollar contract w/o doing their homework? So I think this is what happened: It's person A in the gov't that has some sort of connection with person B in Oracle. Person A is paying "extra" money to person B. That extra money is then split between the two person A and B. Somehow, these events got uncovered - by an auditor perhaps.
It's bogus that the gov't is charging Oracle for "cheating", when it fact, it's because of someone working for the gov't that made it all happen. Target charges me more for a product than Wal-Mart does, so does that mean I can go and sue Target now?
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