Software giant VMware is suing an Italian distributor for around €30 million in damages, claiming in a London court that the company failed to ensure a customer agreed to delete old software licenses during an upgrade plan.

VMware said Computer Gross should have required Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo to agree to VMware’s licensing terms when it sold the bank VMware’s cloud computing software, according to a newly public High Court claim.

Computer Gross had previously bought the rights to resell the software, the claim says.

VMware said that under its terms, Computer Gross was required to ensure that Intesa deleted its old software licenses once it had the updated versions. But Computer Gross failed to do so, and Intesa confirmed that it never agreed to those terms, according to the claim.

VMware said that it gave Computer Gross an 82% discount on the standard resale agreement, based on the expectation that Intesa would retire its existing perpetual licenses, according to the filing.

The list price of the software was €36 million, but Computer Gross paid only €6.6 million, resulting in a discount worth €29.4 million, the claim says.

VMware said Computer Gross should have prevented the license duplication. By not doing so, Computer Gross essentially sold the software at a heavily discounted price.

As well as damages for the allegedly unauthorised price cut, VMware is seeking an order to prevent Computer Gross from continuing separate civil proceedings in Milan, the claim says.

Computer Gross breached a jurisdiction clause in its contract with VMware when it asked the Italian court to confirm that it did not owe VMware compensation over the software deal, according to the claim.