Oracle pays $46 million to settle kickback claims

Oracle has agreed to give the US Government $46 million (28.6 million) to settle claims it paid kickbacks to gain contracts from the administration.

The actual issue was related to Sun Microsystems, now an Oracle subsidiary, which had allegedly paid kickbacks to systems integrators in return for recommendations that federal bodies bought Sun products.

The US Department of Justice said Sun had made deals with consulting companies, who would get paid each time they influenced a government agency to purchase something Sun-branded.

"Kickbacks, illegal inducements, misrepresentations during contract negotiations these undermine the integrity of the government procurement process and unnecessarily cost taxpayers money," said Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice.

"As this case demonstrates, we will take action against those who abuse the public contracting process."

Oracle declined to comment on the settlement.

"In this district, we are committed to aggressively pursuing any actions in which the government has been defrauded," added Christopher R Thyer, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

"Ultimately, it is the taxpayers' money at issue and our office works to protect the citizens of the United States."

The US Government has already secured a number of settlements from tech giants, including HP, as part of a wider investigation into vendors and their work with the administration.

Oracle, meanwhile, has been involved in a number of lawsuits recently.

Texan security software company 2FA launched a lawsuit against Oracle in a wrangle over alleged source code theft.

2FA has claimed Passlogix - now a subsidiary of Larry Ellison's firm - stole source code for authentication and credential management software to use in its own v-GO UAM product line.