Oracle should get US$40.6m at most, says SAP expert

SAP should have to pay Oracle no more than US$40.6 million to resolve their years-long lawsuit over software theft, an SAP damages expert said on Tuesday.

Stephen Clarke, SAP's expert, said in court on Tuesday that damages must be the product of a reasonable business calculation, not an emotional reaction to the theft.

"There's no anger allowed. There's no punishment allowed," Clarke said.

SAP and Oracle, which dominate the global market for software that helps businesses run more efficiently, are battling in court to determine the amount of damages for software theft by SAP.

SAP has accepted liability for its TomorrowNow subsidiary having wrongfully downloaded millions of Oracle files.

Last week, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said his company would have charged SAP US$4 billion to license the programs that were wrongfully downloaded. Oracle's own expert later pegged damages at US$1.6 billion.

Out of 853 customers SAP was able to woo from Oracle, 561 of them never did any business with TomorrowNow, Clarke said.

Clarke also acknowledged that SAP has paid his own firm about US$14 million in fees. Oracle's damages expert testified last week that he had earned fees of about US$4 million.

SAP is expected to rest its case after Clarke is finished testifying this week, at which point Oracle may attempt to put on a rebuttal case.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Gary Hill)