Brussels, 15/03/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Oracle Group has confirmed that on Friday, it received the European Commission's statement of objections to its plans for a hostile takeover bid of Peoplesoft. This stage is part of the procedure used in an in-depth inquiry, and draws up a list of objections formulated by the European executive on the planned operation, and sent to interested parties. In this case, the Commission opened a second inquiry phase on 18 November 2003 on the possible coming together of Oracle and Peoplesoft, a 9.4 billion dollar operation which would create a powerful entity on the business software market. Jim Finn, Oracle's spokesperson, said: "we are pleased to have clarity on what the Commission's key issues are and we will address these issues through our written right of reply and in our hearing testimony (...). The process is ongoing and we are confident that the Commission will see how competitive this business truly is". Peoplesoft, which has rejected Oracle's offer three times, hopes that the EU will recognise the anti-competitive nature of the operation, as the American competent authorities recently did. The Commission's decision will be returned no later than 30 March.