MERGERS : COMMISSION CLEARS ORACLE'S SUN MICROSYSTEMS ACQUISITION.

The European Commission, which had first voiced doubts about the repercussions in Europe of merger plans between Oracle and Sun, gave its unconditional clearance, under the EU merger regulation, on 21 January, to the birth of a global software giant. The United States had already authorised the transaction but the EU executive preferred to open a detailed investigation, in September 2009, to make sure that the alliance by the two US groups would not give rise to any "significant" distortions of competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or a substantial part of it.

Oracle supplies business software, database software, enterprise applications software and related services. Sun provides network computing infrastructure solutions that include computer systems, software, storage and services. In 2008, Sun acquired the open source database, MySQL, the world leader in this field. The Commission sought guarantees primarily on the acquisition of MySQL by Oracle, the world's leading proprietary database vendor, to ensure that competition would not be hampered in the EEA. The transaction makes Oracle the owner of two of the biggest databases on a very concentrated market, dominated by three suppliers - Oracle, IBM and Microsoft - which account for roughly 85% of the market in terms of revenue. The Commission therefore focused its investigation on...