U.S. and Europe Disagree on Sun-Oracle Deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems would not be anticompetitive and consumers would have a variety of database products from which to choose, the Justice Department’s antitrust division said on Monday, in a statement that disagreed with the position taken by the European Union.

The European Commission has objected to Oracle acquisition of Sun, citing a threat to competition, bringing the $7 billion deal into question.

The commission said Monday that a combination of Sun’s MySQL database product and Oracle’s products could hurt competition in the database market, Sun revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But the Justice Department disagreed. “After conducting a careful investigation of the proposed transaction between Oracle and Sun, the Department’s Antitrust Division concluded that the merger is unlikely to be anticompetitive,” the department said in a statement.

“We remain hopeful that the parties and the E.C. will reach a speedy resolution that benefits consumers in the commission’s jurisdiction,” Molly Boast, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said in a statement, referring to the European Commission.

Oracle said the commission’s objection “reveals a profound misunderstanding” and that it “plans to vigorously oppose the Commission’s Statement of Objections”.

By REUTERS

Published: November 9, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/technology/10oracle.html?ref=technology