A jury has awarded Oracle US$1.3 billion in damages in its corporate theft lawsuit against SAP, a blow to the German applications vendor, which had argued it should pay just $40 million for the software stolen by its TomorrowNow subsidiary.
Members of Oracle's legal team embraced each other as the verdict was read in the U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, according to a person in the courtroom. Closing arguments had been presented Monday afternoon, so the jury took less than a full day of deliberations to reach its decision.
It was not the full amount Oracle had asked for, but still considerably more than SAP had said it should pay. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison testified two weeks ago that SAP should have to pay as much as $4 billion to cover the cost of the stolen software.
In the end, the amount awarded was closer to the sum suggested by Oracle's damages expert, who put the figure at $1.7 billion. SAP's damages expert had told the jury that SAP should have to pay $40 million in damages, to cover Oracle's lost profits.
SAP said that it would "pursue all its options" to have the verdict changed, including post-trial motions and an appeal.
The verdict follows a three-week trial that captivated Silicon Valley due to the string of top-level executives, including Ellison and SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott, who appeared in the witness box.