A group of 59 senators led by John Kerry, D-Mass., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are urging the European Commission to move quickly to complete its investigation of Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. In a letter to the commission, the senators expressed concern about Sun's "deteriorating financial condition and the possible negative effect on employment of the company's workforce."

The commission recently said it planned to investigate whether combining Sun's MySQL database product with Oracle's products could harm competition in the database market. In their letter, released Tuesday, the senators noted that the U.S. Justice Department has approved the deal. They added that while they understand the commission's need to investigate transactions that affect its marketplace, they noted that Sun has told them "that their subsidiary, which competes in this specific market, generates only 17 million Euros ($25 million) in revenue and that the same market has competitors with capitalizations of tens of billions of Euros."

"Unfortunately, Sun Microsystems' financial position has become more precarious and the commission's inquiry has continued," they wrote. "Accordingly, we respectfully request the European Commission complete its investigation of this transaction as quickly as possible."