California Appellate Tracker

Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Oracle Corp. (2021)

June 19, 2021

Oracle breached its contract with HP by announcing that its next product releases would not be compatible with HP’s Itanium computers. Following the first phase of trial in this case, the trial court concluded that the parties’ contract required Oracle to offer Itanium-compatible versions of its product releases. Oracle then announced that it would release Itanium-compatible versions, but also announced that it was without prejudice to its intent to appeal from the trial court’s ruling. This decision holds that the lost profits damage award did not improperly sanction Oracle for exercising its constitutionally protected right to appeal. Instead, HP’s expert properly explained that Oracle’s post-trial announcement of its intent to appeal fed doubt in the marketplace about the continued viability of HP’s computers running Oracle programs and thus deterred potential customers from buying HP computers, continuing the harm caused by Oracle’s original announcement of that it would not release Itanium-compatible programs.

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California Appellate Tracker

Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Oracle Corp. (2021)

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