A federal judge handed Oracle a victory on Thursday, ruling that the company's acquisition of software rival PeopleSoft would pose no threat to competition in the corporate software market.
U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker sided with Oracle against the U.S. Department of Justice, which opposes the proposed merger. The agency took Oracle to court in June, charging that a PeopleSoft buyout would empower Oracle to illegally raise prices and would impair innovation in the industry. Oracle argued that it couldn't raise prices with Germany's SAP and a raft of other rivals competing against it.
In his 164-page ruling, Walker sided with Oracle on most counts: "Plaintiffs have not proved that a post-merger Oracle would have sufficient market share in the product and geographic markets" to be anticompetitive.
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