CMA gives unconditional clearance to Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware

 

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has cleared Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware without remedies.

Broadcom is a US technology company that designs, manufactures and supplies a broad range of hardware and infrastructure software solutions.

VMware supplies virtualisation software that is mainly used either in data centres or in private clouds.

In its in-depth investigation the CMA examined whether the merged entity would be able to harm competing manufacturers of storage adapters and fibre channel switches by reducing interoperability between VMware's virtualisation software and competitors' hardware and switches.

The CMA confirmed its provisional findings that any potential financial gain to Broadcom and VMware of reducing interoperability of rival products would not outweigh the potential financial cost in terms of lost sales.

The European Commission conditionally cleared the transaction in July after Broadcom agreed to commitments allowing competitors access to VMware’s cloud computing software. The transaction has been cleared in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, South Africa and Taiwan.  The US Federal Trade Commission has yet to conclude its own in-depth investigation.

The CMA’s decision may be viewed as a welcome antidote to concerns that its merger review procedure, in the wake of its prohibition decision in Microsoft/Activision, is insufficiently flexible to deal with tech mergers.

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/broadcom-slash-vmware-merger-inquiry