The Department of Justice on Friday said it wants more time to review Oracle Corp.’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems, although Oracle officials insist the extended evaluation won’t delay successful completion of the $7.4 billion deal.
The DOJ had been scheduled to complete its 30-day review of the proposed acquisition on Friday. Instead, the agency will extend its review, according to a statement issued today by Oracle. The company did not indicate how long the lengthened examination would take.
According to Oracle’s statement, the DOJ is looking specifically at issues related to the licensing of Sun’s Java software-related products. Java, a language used by Oracle and a wide range of software vendors, would be a significant factor in the acquisition for Oracle. The deal, announced in April, would also for the first time put Oracle in the server hardware and microprocessor businesses.
Oracle officials today attempted to minimize the importance of the extended DOJ review. In a prepared statement, corporate Counsel Dan Wall said, "We've had a very good dialogue with the Department of Justice, and we were almost able to resolve everything before the Second Request deadline. All that's left is one narrow issue about the way rights to Java are licensed that is never going to get in the way of the deal. I fully expect that the investigation will end soon and not delay the closing of the deal this summer."