SAP sued by tech company Celonis over business process software

Adds reaction from SAP, Celonis in paragraph 5

By Mike Scarcella

March 14 (Reuters) - German technology company Celonis has sued Europe's largest software maker SAP SAPG.DE in U.S. court for allegedly monopolizing part of the business software market.

In a lawsuit filed on Thursday in federal court in San Francisco, California, business software maker Celonis said SAP illegally restricts third-party software vendors' ability to access and use customer data, affecting billions of dollars of commerce.

SAP's software applications are widely used by companies for finance, sales, supply chain and other functions. Celonis makes “process mining” software that can help companies review processes in real-time.

Munich-based Celonis accused its larger German competitor of violating U.S. antitrust law and other provisions by making it harder and more expensive for Celonis to access client data stored in SAP’s applications. SAP makes a rival process-mining software program and wants to exclude Celonis from the market, according to the lawsuit.

SAP on Friday said it was reviewing the lawsuit but declined to comment further. Celonis declined to comment.

Celonis was founded in 2011 and now boasts a $13 billion valuation and more than 3,000 employees. The company’s process-mining software analyzes the “digital footprint” of computerized event logs that are stored within systems created by SAP and other providers.

In the lawsuit, Celonis said SAP had taken steps to prevent its customers from sharing data with vendors such as Celonis without paying costly fees.

SAP has “embarked upon an aggressive campaign to exclude third-party application and technology providers from its ecosystem,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also accused SAP of making false and misleading statements to customers about the potential harm of using Celonis software.

Celonis asked a judge to award unspecified monetary damages and to issue an order halting SAP's allegedly anticompetitive conduct.

The case is Celonis SE and Celonis Inc v. SAP SE and SAP America Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 3:25-cv-02519.

For plaintiff: Jennifer Fleury, Justin Bernick and Michael Maddigan of Hogan Lovells

For defendant: No appearance yet

Read more:

SAP must face Teradata trade secrets and antitrust lawsuit, US court rules

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)

((Mike.Scarcella@thomsonreuters.com;))