Nvidia's Purchase of Arm Raises Serious Competition Concerns, UK Regulator Says

   By Ian Walker 
 

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority said Friday that Nvidia Corp.'s $40 billion acquisition of British chip designer Arm from SoftBank Group Corp. raises competition concerns and should now be progressed for further investigation.

The regulator said the deal could lead to a loss of competition and stifle innovation across a number of markets leading to more expensive, or lower quality products.

The CMA said Nvidia has offered a behavioral remedy but that this wouldn't alleviate its concerns. A behavioral remedy regulates the continuing behavior of a business.

On April 19, the British government said that it wanted the CMA to investigate the deal, citing national security grounds.

A Nvidia spokesman previously said that it expected the approval process to take 18 months from the signing of the deal, which was in September.

The U.K. Secretary of State will decide whether the deal will need an in-depth phase 2 investigation on both competition and national security grounds, or whether it should be passed back to the CMA to investigate on competition grounds only.

Write to Ian Walker at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 20, 2021 09:07 ET (13:07 GMT)

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