San Francisco  - Sun Microsystems is to axe 3,000 workers, claiming the firings were caused by a delay in its purchase by Oracle due to a review by EU anti-monopoly regulators.

The layoffs were outlined in a filing by the company to the Securities and Exchange Commission and represent some 10 per cent of the company's 29,000 workers. Sun said the cut would be across all its geographic regions and would be completed over the next 12 years.

Sun agreed to be purchased in July for 7.4 billion dollars by business software maker Oracle. EU regulators have held up the deal citing competition concerns on the database software market, where German-based SAP is one of Oracle's major competitors. The European Commission is expected to issue a decision on the deal by November 19. (dpa)