Oracle-PeopleSoft Antitrust Battle Shifts To Europe

Amelia Torres, spokeswoman for the EU's Competition Directorate, said the EU has been following the U.S. case and would carefully read the opinion of U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled that the U.S. Justice Department had erred in trying to block Oracle's bid. The European action has been held in abeyance, pending the final outcome of the U.S. antitrust case.

"The [EU] Commission had stopped the clock on its review because Oracle had argued that we should look into additional historical market data before making a decision," Torres said. "Oracle has been progressively supplying this data but, to my knowledge and at this stage, we have not restarted the clock yet."

Late last year, the EU had completed a preliminary study of the hostile bid and then decided to go ahead with a full-blown investigation. The U.S. case could drag on longer, if the Justice Department decides to appeal Judge Walker's 164-page decision. The judge is said to be an expert in antitrust law, and he shot down the Justice Department's arguments against the acquisition across-the-board. The Justice Department has 10 days in which to appeal the case.

Torres indicated that if and when its investigation restarts, it will likely take one month to compete. European antitrust laws are different from those in the U.S. and often pose more difficulties for dominant companies, as illustrated by the EU case against Microsoft. The software firm got off relatively lightly in its antitrust case in the U.S., but has been hit with a tough ruling in Europe, with fines of more than $600 million and an order to revise some of its business practices. Microsoft has appealed that decision.

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Oracle's European business is important to it, representing some 35 percent of its total revenues. The European software landscape differs from the U.S. scene, and the EU has brought Germany's SAP AG into a more prominent role in its study of the business-applications-software markets; market definition is a key to antitrust in both the U.S. and Europe.

After Oracle's takeover bid got underway last year, SAP began widening its percentage in the ERP segment, and SAP has attributed its strong advance in sales to confusion among IT managers over the takeover attempt.

With its earlier tender offer scheduled to expire on Friday, Oracle extended the offer through September 24, at $21 a share. Oracle said more than 26 million PeopleSoft shares have been tendered.