Oracle gets more time to respond to EU

European regulators have agreed to extend the deadline to review Oracle's acquisition of Sun, giving Oracle some more time to develop arguments in reply to the European Commission's concerns, according to a Reuters report.

Earlier this month, the European Commission filed a Statement of Objections, a first step toward blocking the $7.4bn deal, over concerns about MySQL. Oracle immediately fired back, issuing a statement that said European regulators have a "profound misunderstanding of both database competition and open-source dynamics." The same day, the US Department of Justice, which has already given its blessing to the deal, pretty much backed Oracle and offered reasons why the US did not see the deal as anti-competitive.

Oracle has said that delays are becoming costly — to the tune of $100m (£60m) per month — and are further damaging the economies through job losses. Sun has had to put restructuring plans in place to stay alive while everyone waits for European approval, most recently by laying off 3,000 employees.

The deadline was extended by one week, to 27 January, 2010 from 19 January.

For more on this story, see EU extends deadline for review of Oracle-Sun deal on ZDNet.com.