European Union regulators have applied brakes to Oracle's $7.4bnillion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

European Union regulators fear that the proposed merger could become lethal for the growth of a free corporate database program as Oracle would gain too much power in the market for database software.

European Union regulators have time until January 19 to decide whether to block or clear the deal. Oracle had hopes to complete the concerned deal this summer.

Speaking his mind, Peter Alexiadis of the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said, “Europeans still have a lot more concerns than Americans about companies using strong or dominant positions to create bottlenecks for competitors in the information and technology sectors.”

Previous year Sun Microsystems purchased MySQL, an open-source database. European regulators are concerned that Oracle, which is already world's no. 1 database maker, might twist MySQL in favor of its own products.

European regulators’ concerned move dragged shares in Oracle down to $21.47, losing 1.4 per cent. Shares in Sun Microsystems plunged to $9.13, down 2 per cent.