Software giant Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems may not go so smoothly in Europe, where the European Commission has stated that the combination of Oracle and Sun would end up eliminating the growth of Sun’s free corporate database program. The European Commission has decided to continue investigating the merger, even though the Justice Department has already approved it.
While U.S. regulators’ main concern involved Oracle’s power in the marketplace, the questions surrounding open-source software have not been as popular on this side of the Atlantic. This would not be the first merger that the U.S. and the European Commission have butt …read more

The European Commission is set to set to release the new rules on Emissions Trading System (ETS) – part of a post-2012 climate change policy package – next week and have preempted the publication with acknowledgment that the plan will hit the competitiveness of heavy industries.
An article in the EU Observer noted that new changes in greenhouse gas emissions rules will most affect Europe’s aluminum makers. Other industries such as chemical, steel and cement would also be impacted causing a need to raise prices between 5 and 48 percent. The changes would give the US and China a competitive edge …read more