14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft can keep the money spent by the Dutch police on Office licenses they don’t need, a judge ruled recently, explaining that although the purchase took place by accident, it was fully legal.
Back in 2005, someone working for the Dutch police placed an order for the Microsoft Office productivity suite, as tools like Microsoft Word and Excel were considered to be must-haves for working with documents and file reports. Due to a mistake that somehow got past the administration, who blindly approved the acquisition, the police purchased licenses for a version of Office they didn’t actually need.
After talks with Microsoft, the software giant agreed to pay back €765,000 even though it wasn’t legally obliged to offer refunds when purchases are made by mistake. And yet, the software giant did pay back the money to fix a terrible blunder that you’d normally expect to get someone fired.
The 2008 blunder
Fast forward to 2008 and here we have the Dutch police spending nearly €3 million on Microsoft Office licenses that once again proved to be useless. This time, law enforcement bought 13,565 licenses, some of which have never been used because they are for a home version of Office that police don’t need.
Once again, Microsoft was contacted for a refund, but this time the software giant refused to pay back the money, explaining that the 2005 reimbursement was just a one-time exception. The dispute moved to court and, recently, a Dutch court ruled in favor of Microsoft, telling the software giant that it can safely keep the money the police paid by mistake.
The judge explained that it doesn’t even matter whether the police used the licenses or not because Microsoft is not selling the usage, but the right to use Office, so law enforcement paid the money to use the productivity suite but it’s up to them to decide when and how to use it.
The Dutch police apparently learned its lesson and decided not to appeal the decision, agreeing to pay an extra €10,000 in legal fees after losing the lawsuit against Microsoft.