It's a case of he said, she said with a multimillion-dollar price tag in between. This is the ongoing battle between the state of Oregon led by Governor John Kitzhaber and Oracle Corporation, one of the biggest IT firms in the world.
The fight began with two state projects that aim to make health services more efficient. These included Cover Oregon, which will serve as an exchange for health insurance. However, both websites were never launched despite the hefty price tag of more than $100 million paid by the state to the IT company.
Due to a series of glitches and other technical difficulties, the state was compelled to cancel the website's launch and instead pay for additional staff that can process health insurance applications manually.
Oracle, nevertheless, set the tempo when it filed a lawsuit against the state on August 8, accusing them of a smear campaign, as if the state is deflecting the blame when the IT firm had fulfilled the provisions of the contract. The company also asked an addition of $23 million aside from what Oregon had already given them.
By August 22, Oregon responded with a counter lawsuit submitted by Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum at circuit court in Marion County. The civil suit alleged that Oracle committed racketeering and fraud, among others, and that they provided incompetent personnel to work on the projects who then created poor-quality work. The same staff were not also able to fix the many issues the website had. Further, Oregon claimed that Oracle prevented them from hiring a systems integrator, whose role should have been to oversee the project. Instead, Oracle allegedly campaigned for the state to get an Oracle consultant that will work as a subcontractor.
The state is also clear as to how much they want to get for damages. They are asking the court around $240 million with penalties amounting to almost $500 million for every alleged wrongdoing. If they win, the state may get as much as $1.7 billion.
