Oracle has received help from lawmakers seeking to speed up the review by the European Commission of its planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Fifty-nine U.S. senators have asked the EC to quicken its investigation and have accused the EC of stalling to hurt U.S. businesses.
The EC has been vocal about the $7.4 billion acquisition, saying it may be anticompetitive, and last week pushed the deadline for its review to Jan. 27 from Jan. 19. Some people familiar with the inner workings of the commission said Oracle's hearing could be as early as Dec. 10, according to Reuters.
In August, the U.S. Department of Justice said combining the two companies would not be anticompetitive and approved the acquisition. The EC fears the deal could have a negative impact on the database market in Europe. Opponents, including the Open Rights Group and Knowledge Ecology, are worried that Sun's open-source MySQL database will be hurt.
Jobs At Stake
The senators want the EC to follow the DOJ's lead since the Sun subsidiary brings in only $25.7 million in revenue while competitors have capitalizations in the tens of billions of euros.
"The deal between Oracle and Sun was announced in April and seven months have gone by without a resolution," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the letter to Angelos Pangratis, the EC's acting head of delegation.
The EC's delay is having a negative impact on American jobs and businesses, the senators said in the letter. With each day that passes, the nearly defunct Sun continues to lose more money. For a company that had losses of $120 million in the fourth quarter, each day of delay is a big deal.
"Continued delay of the European Commission's decision on clearance threatens thousands of American jobs, so we felt compelled to ask for a speedy resolution," Kerry said.
Unfair Processes
While the EC has the right to investigate such mergers, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said regulatory agencies are increasingly using their investigations to hurt American businesses.
"I have become increasingly concerned about the growing body of evidence that foreign regulatory agencies are unfairly using their review processes to impede the business of American corporations," Hatch said. "This transaction has been thoroughly reviewed by the United States Department of Justice, which has decided to take no action. Therefore, I hope the EC will quickly conclude their investigation into this transaction."
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