Oracle business practices face scrutiny in US and Europe

Oracle has been accused of unfair practices in its Sun Microsystems maintenance contracts, which are "onerous" and created with the sole purpose of monopolising the market, according to the Service Industry Association (SIA).

The charges have been raised in the European Union and all 50 US states, and assert that new hardware maintenance policies are anti-competitive and created with the aim of dominating the $2.4bn (£1.5bn) maintenance business currently contracted to independent service organisations.

The SIA already has a separate claim against Oracle awaiting a response from the US Department of Justice.

"In a shift from decades of prior policy, Oracle has restricted access to its operating system software updates exclusively to users with current Oracle hardware maintenance contracts," the SIA said.

"This effectively prohibits all users needing software support from competitively selecting their hardware maintenance service."

Sun customers that take services from other providers are subject to excessive restoration fees if they want to go back to Oracle support, according to the SIA.

"Oracle has imposed onerous 'return to Oracle' service restoration fees clearly intended to intimidate customers from leaving Oracle support in the first place," said the SIA in its filing.

"The customer is required to select Oracle for all or none of its Sun hardware maintenance needs."

The SIA claimed that Oracle will deny any type of service, including time and materials service, to customers that select an independent service organisation for any portion of their contemporary Sun hardware support needs.

"Oracle will not allow customers to split their service requirements for contemporary Sun hardware between Oracle and an independent service organisation even in cases where Oracle does not have a physical presence in the area," the filing said.

Claudia Betzner, executive director of the SIA, said that the organisation had held many interviews with Sun customers and spoken to the US Attorney General about its complaints.

"The SIA has received global interest on this issue from companies that are adversely affected by these onerous policies, and from the worldwide press. It is not just a US problem, it is a global problem," she said.