BERLIN, July 3 (Xinhua) -- SAP AG, the leading European software maker, admitted on Tuesday that one of its subsidiaries has made "inappropriate" downloads of technical data from the website of its U.S. competitor Oracle Corp..

"We regret very much that this occurred," SAP Chief Executive Officer Henning Kagermann said on Tuesday. "Even a single inappropriate download is unacceptable from my perspective."

The California-based Oracle has filed a lawsuit against SAP on March 22 claiming that SAP workers hacked into Oracle's website and stole software codes on a "grand scale."

SAP admitted that its Texas-based TomorrowNow unit, which provides software support to clients, made "some inappropriate" downloads of fixes and support documents on behalf of TomorrowNow customers. However, the Walldorf, Germany-based company denied that it had access to Oracle's intellectual property and the downloaded data stayed in TomorrowNow's separate system.

A court hearing has been scheduled for September 4 in San Francisco. Experts said that a settlement with Oracle may cost SAP100 million dollars.