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It has been nearly eight years since the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to dissolve its 1956 consent decree with IBM, lifting restrictions that had prevented the company from becoming a monopoly in the market for punch card tabulating machines. But perhaps those restrictions were better left in place. Because on Thursday, the DOJ opened a new investigation into IBM’s business practices, seeking to determine if the company has abused its monopoly position in the mainframe market.

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Looks like the Google Books Settlement won’t be hitting the shelves until later this year–at the earliest. Days after the U.S. Justice Department criticized the deal and the forward-looking business arrangements it seeks to create as cause for “significant legal concern,” Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers requested a delay in a judge’s final “fairness hearing” scheduled for Oct. 7 so that they can amend it.

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The Justice Department’s extended antitrust review of Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun apparently turned up few issues of concern. Oracle said this afternoon that regulators have approved the $7.4 billion deal with no restrictions.

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Earlier this year, Christine Varney, the new antitrust chief at the Department of Justice, said she planned to return the DOJ to a policy that led to landmark antitrust suits like the one against Microsoft in the ’90s. And she delivered on that promise in short order. Since her confirmation in late April, the DOJ has seen a sort of Trustbuster renaissance. It has begun inquiring into potentially anticompetitive recruiting practices in Silicon Valley. It’s opened an investigation into the Google Books settlement. And now it’s scrutinizing cellphone exclusivity deals, like the lucrative one between Apple and AT&T.

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Looks like the fireworks have begun early in Mountain View. On Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice officially notified Google that it is investigating its book deal for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The notification after the jump.

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Oracle was “almost” able to resolve the Justice Department’s concerns over its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Almost, but not quite. The 30-day review period for the $7.4 billion deal was set to expire midnight Friday. But instead of approving it, the DOJ extended its examination, issuing a second request for more information.

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To hear tell from Sun executives, the company’s impending acquisition by Oracle will be of great benefit to Sun, its technology and its customers. “Is this Oracle thing a good thing for Java?” Sun chairman Scott McNealy asked last week at the company’s JavaOne conference. “And is it a…good thing for the community, and all the rest of it?…It’s absolutely a good thing.” Thing is, this wasn’t always Sun’s opinion. In fact, the company’s touting of the benefits of the Oracle acquisition is, dare I say, a tad ironic given its preacquisition opinion of Oracle’s prices.

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The Department of Justice’s inquiry into Google’s proposed book-search settlement continues on apace with various publishers today claiming to have received civil investigative demands from the agency’s antitrust division. These are simple requests for information and indicative of little more than the DOJ’s concern that the settlement might impair competition in the market for digital books. That said, that the DOJ even has such concerns is problematic for Google.

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A couple bombshells in Sun Microsystems’s latest 10-Q filing. Seems the company believes it may have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans bribery of foreign government officials. Oh, and some of its shareholders are suing to block its acquisition by Oracle.

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Google’s gone and run afoul of the Department of Justice again. Its interest piqued by the growing outcry over the company’s proposed book-search settlement with authors and publishers, the agency has opened an inquiry.

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“Google abandoned [its deal with Yahoo] not because pressing ahead with it ‘risked’ a protracted legal battle, but because it guaranteed one.” I wrote that on Nov. 6, following the official dissolution of Google’s proposed advertising partnership with Yahoo. Turns out the guarantee to which I referred was an ironclad one. Sanford Litvack, the attorney who would have been lead counsel in the event of a government antitrust case against Google, tells American Lawyer Daily that the Department of Justice was literally hours away from suing the company when it bailed on the deal.

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