Penalties for Licensing Violations

I imagine there would be audit exercise or sort of clemency, where an organisation declared any unlicensed software and paid for all instances.  Not recent but this thread has reports from people that have been through this, I have picked out a few quotes -

• "In our case we had to buy all out of compliance licenses and the fine was 2x the cost of those licenses"
• "If you are knowingly non-compliant and not working to rectify the situation you can be held liable"
• "in a worst case scenario, you could be in a situation where in court your software vendors could argue that since you worked with stolen software (and intentionally) that everything ever produced using that software belongs to them"

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/138853-fear-of-ms-licensing-audit

Also from "http://emerset.com/insights-and-resources/microsoft-audit-readiness/microsoft-software-licensing-audit-looking/"

"For Microsoft® VL customers, it’s not a question of if they’ll be audited, but rather, when it will occur. The terms of the VL Agreements grant MS the right to perform an audit once each year with thirty days’ notice. MS has implemented a policy whereby Select, Open, and EA customers should expect an audit at least once every three years. This may take the form of a self-assessment or an onsite audit. If the audit reveals unlicensed usage of 5% or more than they have licensed, the customer will be required to pay the retail price for all unlicensed products plus the cost of the audit."