The European Commission decided, on Wednesday 27 October, to open an in-depth investigation to examine NVIDIA’s proposed acquisition of Arm under the EU Merger Regulation.
The Commission is concerned that the merged entity would have the ability and incentive to restrict access to Arm’s technology by NVIDIA’s competitors and that the proposed acquisition would lead to higher prices, less choice and less innovation in the semiconductor industry.
According to Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for Competition Policy, “our analysis shows that the acquisition of Arm by NVIDIA could lead to a restricted or degraded access to Arm’s IP, with distortive effects in many markets where semiconductors are used”.
The buyout, estimated at $40 billion, was announced in September 2020 by the Japanese SoftBank, parent company of Arm, which had reached an agreement with the US company NVIDIA, champion of graphics cards.
The Commission now has 90 working days, until 15 March 2022, to take a decision.
Link to the case: https://bit.ly/318VvMU (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)