Justice clears Oracle’s purchase of Sun Microsystems

The Justice Department has given the go-ahead for Oracle’s $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Oracle had announced its intention of taking over Sun in April and Sun’s stockholders approved the deal last month.

While U.S. antitrust regulators have approved the deal, Oracle must still wait for clearance by the European Commission.

Approval of the deal was expected earlier this summer, but the department said in June that it would also examine Oracle’s acquisition of Java, which is one of Sun’s key assets.

Oracle’s acquisition of Sun was announced after talks between Sun and IBM fell through. Oracle’s purchase of software maker Siebel Systems was also reviewed by the agency in 2005 before it was cleared.

–Kim Hart