The judge presiding over the Oracle antitrust trial aggressively questioned the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday as the agency made its final arguments against Oracle"s attempt at a hostile takeover of rival PeopleSoft.
The software maker and the government agency presented their closing arguments in the highly charged antitrust trial on Tuesday, the culmination of weeks of live testimony, months of preparation and thousands of pages of evidence. Oracle is expected to present its closing case later in the day. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker hit Justice Department attorney Claude Scott with a barrage of questions about the government"s market analysis soon after Scott began. Walker asked why he should view the market in question as a United States market only, as the agency contends, rather than a global market.
"How can this be anything but a global market?" Walker asked, noting that the software code that PeopleSoft and Oracle sell in the United States is the same code they sell in Europe. He also called into question the Justice Department"s market analysis, which defines the relevant arena as "high-function" human resource management and financial management software. "Is this a definition that has ever been used outside this litigation?" Walker asked Scott.