The now proposed NVIDIA Arm merger has suddenly hit another hurdle after both the EU and the UK have both announced that they would open certain competition investigations into the said deal. Some time last September, NVIDIA had confirmed that they had already reached an agreement for them to purchase the British chipmaker Arm for a whopping $40 billion.
Nvidia's Arm acquisition
Ever since the said deal was initially announced, it had then been subject to much scrutiny, however. Arm's popular processors are being used in a lot of different smartphones and the company had currently had an open-licensing business model that was based on its customer neutrality. There are certain concerns that this might be threatened if NVIDIA's supposed takeover pushes through.
According to the story by TechRadar, reports now also indicate that both the EU and the UK have already agreed to scrutinize the said deal much further. Both of them are reportedly refusing to rule out and put a complete block on the said deal. Alternatively, it could still also be approved pending concessions.
US Federal Trade Commission looking into the matter
The main fact that the additional regulators are all getting involved now comes as no surprise. Some time late last year, the official US Federal Trade Commission had announced that it would also be seeking further information regarding the deal in order to ensure that it had not breached certain competition rules.
Apparently, Softbank, the current owner of Arm, along with Nvidia had already set a deadline of a whopping 18 months for the acquisition to be completed. The UK investigation that just slightly predates the EU investigation, has already asked both businesses to submit their own views regarding the said deal. The Microsoft-backed semiconductor firm known as Graphcore is now believed to be just one of the many companies to raise its alarmed concerns, according to an article by CNBC.
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EU and UK investigation
It should still be made clear now, however, that both of the investigations currently remain at still the preliminary stage. Currently, it does not really look too good for this specific NVIDIA deal. It also seems quite unlikely that the US firm would be willing to pay such a substantial fee in order to purchase Arm if it also does not see some competitive benefit. This would naturally harm the company's said rivals within the competitive smartphone space. Making things even more complicated, regulators over in the UK are also examining as to whether the NVIDIA takeover would actually have some national security implications.
The case goes on and on and as to the final decision as to whether NVIDIA and Arm would push through with the deal remains to be seen. With the piling pressure coming from both the EU and the UK, this makes things harder for the deal to push through without making quite a fuzz.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
