Rimini Street's Oracle payments continue to stack up

US judge orders $27.7m payment of prejudgement interest, but Rimini Street set to continue appeals

Rimini Street has been ordered to pay Oracle $27.7m (£22.7m) in prejudgement interest, with the fee set to rise ahead of a final judgement in its long-running legal battle.

The court also confirmed a permanent injunction barring Rimini Street from infringing Oracle's copyrights in the latest installment of the case.

Rimini Street was last month ordered to pay Oracle's $46m legal bill, bringing the total amount of damages Rimini Street owed to $124m.

The legal wrangle centres around Oracle's accusations that Rimini Street engaged in illegal conduct and copyright infringement during the years that followed its 2005 launch. A jury said these infringements were "innocent", says Rimini Street, which has sought to lower the amount of damages it pays to Oracle.

Oracle's general counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement: "This permanent injunction imposes important restrictions on Rimini Street and Oracle is grateful that the court has taken steps to prevent continuing unlawful acts by Rimini Street and its executives."

In its own statement Rimini Street said the injunction "does not prohibit Rimini Street's ongoing or future provision of support for these lines, but rather constrains the manner in which Rimini Street many continue to provide support services for these product lines", before confirming that it intends to appeal the injunction.

This is not the first time Rimini Street has stressed that the injunction would not affect customer service, leading Oracle to question the third-party service provider's integrity to the court and its clients.

Oracle said: "Although Rimini Street has stated that there was 'no expected impact' from any injunction, Rimini Street also told the court that it 'could suffer significant harm to its current business practices if the proposed injunction were entered,' which it now has been.

"These contradictory positions raise the issue of whether Rimini is misleading the court or making misrepresentations to customers."

Rimini Street reaffirmed that it intends to pay the one-time fair market licence fee of $35.6m awarded to Oracle for infringing its software rights, but it intends to appeal the remaining $88m.

The service provider recently announced its Q3 results, with revenue up 32 per cent year on year to $41m in the three months ending 30 September 2016.