SAP/Waste Management Dispute Comes to a Quiet End
More than two years of back-and-forth lawsuits came to an end early in May as SAP and Waste Management agreed to settle their sometimes ugly lawsuit out of court. The companies are keeping the terms of the agreement private, but a SAP has made a one-time payment to Waste Management, putting an end to the rancorous lawsuit that stems from Waste Management’s 2005 purchase from the software giant.
Background of the Dispute
The lawsuit itself dates back to March of 2008, when Waste Management sued SAP for $100 million in damages for money it had spent on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, plus $350 million more, which is money Waste Management says SAP promised it in benefits had the software implementation been a success.
SAP answered the original lawsuit in August of 2008, when it counter-sued Waste Management, claiming the garbage hauling company failed to correctly inform SAP of its requirements. SAP also claimed it was owed millions of dollars in software maintenance and service fees.
Exchanging Legal Blows
The back-and-forth grew ugly at times as the companies volleyed claims and counterclaims back and forth. Among the more interesting of these exchanges took place during the original lawsuit, when Waste Management claimed that top SAP executives had “rigged and manipulated” the software demonstrations, using “fake software environments, even though these demonstrations were represented to be the actual software.” Waste Management claimed in their original suit that internal SAP documents revealed that they had used a “mock-up version of that software intended to deceive Waste Management,” and that later demonstrations also used this “fake software.”
In its counter-suit, SAP alleged that Waste Management failed to “timely and accurately define its business requirements,” and that the company had not provided “sufficient, knowledgeable, decision-empowered users and managers,” which SAP felt could have made the project a success. The counterclaim from SAP also argued that Waste Management could not claim that the software did not meet all its needs, because the company “understood and expressly agreed that SAP America not warrant that the applications in the Software are designed to meet all of (Waste Management’s) business requirements.”
A Quiet Resolution
After more than three years of bickering, failed negotiations and mediations, and two years of lawsuit motions, the saga has come to a quiet end. Providing no further details on the settlement, SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie is quoted by BusinessWeek as saying in an e-mail, “The matter between Waste Management and SAP has been resolved, and the case has been dismissed.”
