Department of Justice Antitrust Division Issues Statement on the European Commission's Decision Regarding the Proposed Transaction Between Oracle and Sun

Department of Justice Antitrust Division Issues Statement on the European
Commission's Decision Regarding the Proposed Transaction Between Oracle and
Sun

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Deputy Assistant Attorney
General Molly Boast of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division issued
the following statement today after the European Commission (EC) issued a
statement of objections regarding Oracle Corporation's proposed acquisition of
Sun Microsystems Inc.:

"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. This conclusion was based on the particular
facts of the transaction and the Division's prior investigations in the
relevant industries. The investigation included gathering statements from a
variety of industry participants and a review of the parties' internal
business documents. At this point in its process, it appears that the EC holds
a different view. We remain hopeful that the parties and the EC will reach a
speedy resolution that benefits consumers in the Commission's jurisdiction.

"Several factors led the Division to conclude that the proposed transaction is
unlikely to be anticompetitive. There are many open-source and proprietary
database competitors. The Division concluded, based on the specific facts at
issue in the transaction, that consumer harm is unlikely because customers
would continue to have choices from a variety of well established and widely
accepted database products. The Department also concluded that there is a
large community of developers and users of Sun's open source database with
significant expertise in maintaining and improving the software, and who could
support a derivative version of it.

"The Department and the European Commission have a strong and positive
relationship on competition policy matters. The two competition authorities
have enjoyed close and cooperative relations. The Antitrust Division will
continue to work constructively with the EC and competition authorities in
other jurisdictions to preserve sound antitrust enforcement policies that
benefit consumers around the world."

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, +1-202-514-2007, TDD
+1-202-514-1888