Less cooing

10 November 2009 By Robert Cyran Follow @rob_cyran

The Obama administration s relatively vigorous approach to competition policy is welcome in Brussels. But mutual cooing has turned into squawks now that the European Commission has raised objections over the merger of two US firms. Shared views are one thing, turf is another.

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The European Commission has sent a statement of objections to Oracle in reference to its proposed purchase of Sun Microsystems.

The US Department of Justice has given its approval to the deal between the two US technology companies, and on November 9 issued a press release critiquing the EC objections. It said there were a variety of competitors, and that developers could introduce derivative versions of MySQL if Oracle refused to take good care of its new purchase.

The EC said the combination of Sun's MySQL and Oracle's products could hurt competition in the database market, according to Sun. MySQL is the largest open source database, while Oracle sells the most common proprietary code database. The EC has until January 19 to formally clear or block the deal.

Oracle has agreed to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.5bn, or $9.50 a share, in cash. The break fee should Oracle walk away from the deal is $260m, plus up to $45m in costs associated with the merger.

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