EU, Oracle Enter War Of Words Over Antitrust Probe

AOIFE WHITE

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Commission and Oracle Corp. entered a war of words Tuesday after the company criticized EU regulators' objection to its takeover of Sun Microsystems.

Oracle said Monday that a formal antitrust charge sheet from the European Commission laying out problems with the proposed $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. "reveals profound misunderstanding of both database competition and open source dynamics."

The European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, replied Tuesday that such criticism was "facile and superficial."

EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said regulators were obliged to investigate "a whole series of complaints from customers of these companies expressing their concerns" that Oracle's purchase of open-source database software MySQL could eliminate a crucial rival.

The EU executive has until Jan. 19, 2010 to decide whether to clear or block the deal. Todd would not confirm that regulators had sent formal charges to Oracle — a rare move that signals that the EU sees major antitrust problems with a takeover and could forbid it going ahead.