Larry Ellison hands back $575m from Oracle's Pillar slurp

Oracle chief exec Larry Ellison has agreed to waive a potential payout of $575m to clear up accusations of a conflict of interest over Oracle's acquisition of Pillar Data Systems, a company Ellison owned. Ellison agreed to hand back over 95 per cent of an "earn-out" payday he got when Oracle slurped Pillar in 2011, after two …

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone who honestly earned 500 Million going to give it back without a fight?

You can pay a for a lot of lawyer-ing and still have millions left for leisure suits.

[K]

Well yes...

Especially if means he can stay in his position and earn billions.

[Trevor_Pott]

Depends, how much of that $500M would he actually have gotten to keep? After taxes, not nearly $500M. Depending on how the numbers get worked out, it might not have nearly been so big a hit as you might think. (It can alter how much of various other monies get taxes at what rates, etc.)

Balance that against legal costs and the opportunity cost of wasting his time on this when he could be earning his millions doing something else...

When you're Larry Ellison, $500M pre-tax just honestly isn't that big of a deal.

[Steve Davies 3]

$500M pre-tax is not such a big deal when you pay only 1% of it in tax. All those tax deductable yachts are wonderful things.

[Trevor_Pott]

Closer to 20%, I'd guess. Still a far cry from the ~33% that I pay...