“A flawed argument by The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was ultimately responsible for a judge’s decision to allow Oracle Corp. to pursue its hostile takeover attempt of rival PeopleSoft Inc., Meta Group Inc. analysts said Tuesday during a conference call with more than 700 listeners.

Last week Oracle won a lawsuit against the DOJ, which the DOJ initiated in order to block Oracle’s hostile takeover attempt of PeopleSoft on the grounds it would be anti-competitive. Now that Oracle has won the suit, it is free to pursue PeopleSoft and has effectively cleared what Meta Group called the most significant roadblock to the acquisition.

“Basically the Department of Justice showed up with a pretty bad argument,” said David Yockelson, senior vice-president of the Meta Group Inc. “The scope of the market it created was both geographically and functionally too small, and too restrictive. It didn’t appear to discuss customer buying patterns the right way and most interestingly, perhaps, it failed to recognize key competitors aside from Oracle and PeopleSoft.” “