Celonis wants to access customer data within SAP more easily. However, the latter is alleged to make this more difficult and thus disrupt potential competition in the process mining field. The complaint led to a lawsuit in California.
The lawsuit appeared on the radar of The Register, which presents the complaint in pdf form. Although both parties are from Germany, the case is being handled by the Northern District of California. This has much to do with an advantageous legal environment for Celonis. Indeed, this district is the most popular among antitrust plaintiffs.
Deliberate obstacles
Celonis argues that SAP deliberately hinders third-party software providers. Tensions between the two companies increased after SAP acquired process mining company Signavio in 2021. According to Celonis, SAP is using its dominant position in the ERP market to push customers toward its own solutions.
In the suit, Celonis argues that SAP’s approach is especially detrimental to customers. Due to the high cost of switching to another ERP provider, customers are stuck with SAP’s restrictions.
In the suit, Celonis accuses SAP of the following: “SAP has embarked upon an aggressive campaign to exclude third-party application and technology providers from its ecosystem through new charges and fees, arbitrary technical limitations, restrictive policy updates, and self-preferencing of its own solutions at the expense of rivals.”
Also read: Pega adds Process Mining to its portfolio