Oracle Corp founder and chief executive Larry Ellison is the target of an embarrassing lawsuit by former marketing executive Terry Garnett, who accuses the company of unfairly firing him two months ago, the Wall Street Journal reports. The suit inter alia charges that Ellison has used Oracle’s resources to benefit nCube Corp, the parallel processor builder almost wholly owned by Ellison. His lawsuit charges that he was fired for not carrying out orders from Ellison that represented a conflict of interest between Ellison and Oracle. Oracle general counsel Raymond Ocampo told the paper It sounds as if Mr Garnett is making facetious allegations to leverage what is a simple breach-of contract action. Garnett alleges that Ellison told him to form a division for parallel computers that would run Oracle software better on nCube computers than on competitors’ machines, and that he ordered Garnett to form a home shopping company that would use Oracle software on nCube computers and would be co-owned by Garnett and Ellison, all without Oracle board approval. Garnett is seeking over $30m compensatory, plus punitive damages against Oracle and Ellison.
