New York, May 27, 2016 -- Moody's Investors Service said that Alphabet Inc.'s victory in the code copyright dispute with Oracle Corporation ("Oracle" - A1/Stable) is credit positive but will not impact its Aa2 senior unsecured long term debt rating, Prime-1 short-term debt rating or the stable outlook. Yesterday, a jury ruled in favor of Alphabet's subsidiary, Google, in a long-running dispute with Oracle over its code used to create software for Android, Google's mobile operating system. Oracle had filed a lawsuit against Google for allegedly violating Oracle's copyright by using the Java programming language in developing the Android operating system. However, the jury found that Google was not in violation of laws and the company had made fair use of Oracle's codes. Oracle had initially demanded up to $9 billion in damages from Google. In Moody's opinion, the court's decision in favor of Google is positive for the company as it does not have to incur damages and the development removes uncertainty surrounding the long pending litigation. While the company has ample liquidity and financial flexibility to fund damages (should it have lost the case), the verdict is also a positive from an operational standpoint as an unfavorable ruling could have hindered the way Google and other software developers use programming to build products in the future. Moody's stated that Alphabet's ratings and outlook remain unchanged as the impact of the court's decision will not change the company's credit profile.

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