The year hasn’t been one of Nike’s best, and now the athletic retailer may be headed to court over an issue related to pirating software.
Database management company Quest is taking the sneaker giant to court for violating a software licensing agreement (SLA) signed in 2001. Quest has accused Nike of making unauthorized copies and installations of a software it sold to the company, downloading and using illegal cracked keys.
The tech firm said it discovered the violations during a January 2017 audit of Nike’s software environment.
Court papers from Quest, reported first by The Next Web (TNW), said, “Nike breached and continues to breach the SLA by failing to pay Quest the required license fees for Nike’s full deployment of Quest Software Products, which far exceeds the scope of the rights granted to Nike under the SLA.”
Quest claims it “has suffered and is continuing to suffer damages” in an amount that is to be determined at trial. Despite further communications with Nike, Quest said the sneaker giant has refused to purchase the additional licenses necessary to bring its deployments of the Quest Software Products into compliance with the parties’ SLA.
Nike has been on the receiving end of bad news since allegations of “workplace misconduct” surfaced last month. Nine executives have left the company since, including Nike brand president Trevor Edwards, who was being primed to be CEO Mark Parker’s likely successor, as well as vice president of footwear Greg Thompson.