The Netherlands threatened to sue Oracle over a huge fine

Translated, original news article from October 15th. Original in Dutch and behind a forced user tracking wall: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/158610/nederland-dreigde-naar-de-rechter-te-gaan-wegens-miljardeneis-van-oracle.html

# 'The Netherlands threatened to sue Oracle over a claim of multiple billions'

Between 2015 and the end of 2017, the Dutch government and Oracle were in conflict about alleged illegal use of Oracle software. At the height of the dispute, the company threatened with a fine of 3.2 billion euros, which the government wanted to challenge in court.

According to research of the Financieel Dagblad [Financial Daily], eight ministries and agencies of the Dutch government allegedly used Oracle software illegally. Which software it concerns is not mentioned in the article. After Oracle threatened with a fine of multiple billions, the government threatened to take the conflict to a judge.

Because of the conflict, ministries and agencies were advised to "not trust Oracle employees' verbal grants". According to a confidential internal memo that the FD saw, employees allegedly used tactics "to threaten based on noncompliance" and "make potential licensing issues as large as possible".

In November 2017, the government "managed to largely diffuse" the huge claim by settling for "several millions", according to the FD. The government hired a law firm to achieve this. Due to the experiences with Oracle, the government set up a knowledge center to bundle purchase experiences of ministries and "collectively fight back". According to an internal source, this raised the tension in the relationship with Oracle and negotiation sessions were "regularly" stopped prematurely due to "emotions running too high".

The issues are not all in the past, according to the sources. For example, Oracle wants that the Dutch government, just like other commercial users, pay for the free and open source software Java as of 2019.

In the beginning of October, more than a hundred large companies and agencies additionally raised concerns in the FD article about the behavior of Oracle in particular. The IT giant would have a profit model where customers are given "stranglehold contracts" and the company makes "many millions per year" in surcharges. The CIO Platform Nederland filed a complaint with the European Commission about this.