On June 3, 2022 all of the parties in the Sunrise Firefighters' security class action suit against Oracle filed a notice with the court announcing that they had reached a settlement. The parties also asked Judge Freeman to vacate the Case Scheduling Order in light of the settlement. Previously we predicted that a settlement might be imminent since the court did certify the class. Once the class was certified Oracle faced significant risk that discovery might bring to the light of day certain of Oracle's predatory audit practices taken from its Audit, Bargain, Close ("ABC") Playbook. The threat of imminent and extensive discovery must have put significant settlement pressure on Oracle. Now that settlement has come to pass and the parties are preparing settlement documents for the court's approval, what does this potentially mean for Oracle customers?
In our opinion it may be time for Oracle customers to prepare for the resumption of some very aggressive Oracle audits. Some of our readers may be wondering about what I mean by "resumption" as they have probably already been exposed to some very significant brass knuckles audit tactics. It is my opinion that the pendency of this very public case did serve to somewhat moderate Oracle's behavior as it did not want to send any of its customers into the arms of the Plaintiffs' lawyers litigating the Sunrise Firefighters' case. Now that threat is gone and Oracle may feel unbound.
Only time will tell. We hope we are wrong.
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