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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Oracle & Oregon Settle Health Care Website Feud

(CN) - Oracle and Oregon agreed to a $100 million settlement, ending years of competing lawsuits involving the state's failed health-care exchange website, state officials said Thursday.

In recent years, both the state and the software giant have been involved in six lawsuits and countersuits, blaming each other for the failure of Cover Oregon.

Oregon hired Oracle to build the health care exchange website, which never took off, despite receiving more than $300 million in federal money.

After more than two years of competing lawsuits, Oracle and Oregon entered a $100 million settlement to drop all the pending litigation.

The software company that Oregon had accused of "shoddy performance" and lying to the state will now spend millions for technical services, government officials announced Thursday.

As part of the settlement, Oracle will provide software and technical support to the state for the next six years, and will spend $10 million to fund Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, education in schools.

The licensing agreement with Oracle means the company will spend $60 million for customer support service to help update the government's IT systems, officials said.

Oracle will also guarantee future discounts in its software for the state, and will pay $25 million in legal fees.

"This settlement outcome is a 'win-win' for the people of Oregon—without the expense and continued impact on our collective psyche," state Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement.

In January, Oracle claimed it entered a $25 million settlement with Gov. Kate Brown's former chief of staff Brian Shipley, but the agreement was not enforced. Rosenblum disputed the existence of a settlement, calling it an "entire figment of [Oracle's] imagination."

Gov. Brown tweeted praise to the parties for "coming together to slay the many-headed dragon that the litigation has become." She said a large part of the settlement will be used "to modernize Oregon's antiquated and duplicative IT system."

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