When software vendor auditors push too far, enterprise technology leaders must be prepared to push back.
In an extreme case, the food company Mars (best known for Snickers and M&M’s candies) filed a lawsuit petitioning the court to order Oracle’s auditors to back off. Following the initial “license review” order from Oracle in September 2014, Mars spent more than a year negotiating the scope of the audit and license procedures – providing Oracle with more than 233,000 pages of documentation, at its own expense. Mars said the burden of the audit was far out of proportion with the requirements of the contract.
Mars dropped the lawsuit in December 2015—indicating that it ultimately reached a settlement. In another license dispute that bubbled over into court, SAP sought $600…
