Joining a lawsuit against the country’s well-known IT vendor Oracle, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken the legal route against the company, alleging that its contentious sales practices has resulted in tens of millions of dollars of overcharges for government agencies.

The original lawsuit against Oracle, the renowned enterprise middleware and business application maker, was filed by ex-Oracle contract specialist Paul Frascella in May 2007, on behalf of the federal government.

The recently unsealed lawsuit claimed that Oracle had swindled the federal government out of “tens of millions of dollars.” Going by the allegations leveled against Oracle, the company reaped unwarranted profits by not disclosing its lowest prices on software products to the General Services Administration (GSA).

In the June 17-filed complaint in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the DOJ argued that Oracle provided its “most favored customers” certain discounts which even the government customers were also entitled to via the company’s longstanding deal with the GSA.

According to the DOJ, the GSA’s agreement with companies like Oracle is essentially aimed at facilitating the routine purchases for federal government employees. Under the “multiple award schedule” of the GSA, the federal government negotiates contracts with vendors and makes lists of specific products to be potentially used by government employees for making quick purchases on an ‘as-needed’ basis.