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European Union regulators have extended their review of plans by U.S. software firm Oracle to buy Sun Microsystems for $7 billion, giving Oracle more time to tackle concerns the deal may be anti-competitive.
The executive European Commission has objected to Oracle's [ ORCL 23.12 
+0.00 (+0.00%) ] planned acquisition of computer maker Sun, [ JAVA 9.49 +0.0 (+11,798,920.00%) ] throwing the deal into question.
"Oracle requested the extension in order to have the opportunity to further develop its arguments in response to the Commission's concerns," the Commission said on Friday in a daily list of mergers under review.
The Commission, which regulates competition in the 27-country EU, said it had pushed back its deadline to Jan. 27 from Jan. 19. It gave no further details.
The Commission said in a preliminary assessment that combining Sun's MySQL database product and Oracle's products could hurt competition over databases, Sun said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this month.
Oracle had said at the time that it "plans to vigorously oppose the Commission's statement of objections."
Sun struck a deal this year to sell itself to Oracle after several years of failed attempts to turn itself around.
The deal was seen as a way to transform Sun into a diversified technology company, selling computers alongside Oracle's software.
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