The $7.4 billion takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle has been approved by the European Commission (EC).
Concerns among European chiefs about Oracle's
development investment in rival Sun Microsystems have been allayed, with the acquisition having been approved.
The $7.4 billion (£4.6 billion)
asset financing acquisition of the enterprise software company was found not to impede effective competition in the European Economic Area.
Commenting on the acquisition, competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said: "I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned.
"Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalise important assets and create new and innovative products."
An in-depth investigation revealed that acquisition of the Sun MicroSystem open source database, MySQL, by Oracle would not be problematic, despite the market for such products being highly concentrated in Europe between Oracle, IBM and Microsoft.
Although MySQL and Oracle compete in certain parts of the market, they are not as close in others.
The deal had first been announced in April 2009 and came under fire because of concern that the acquisition would stifle competition across the EU database market.
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