If you want to check your syntax in MS Access then set up a pass through query in Access. That way Access will send your SQL string directly to Oracle and you should get the same ORA-00933 error message. This will confirm that MS Access SQL is being translated into Oracle SQL when it is being passed via the Oracle ODBC driver. When you do the same thing in perl the DBI module does not to the equivalent translation. I have not looked at your SQL that carefully but I suspect the join syntax does not comply with what Oracle expects.