The US Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit with the demand to block the deal by the American NVIDIA on the purchase of the British ARM. According to the antitrust regulator, the company will gain control over the computing technologies and developments that its competitors in the semiconductor industry rely on.
The FCS believes that the combined company will be able to suppress competing technologies of the next generation. ARM is the main supplier of architecture technology for most of the semiconductor companies that underpin nearly all mobile processors, including Apple and Android devices using Qualcomm chips.
According to CNBC, it is the actions of US regulators that could halt the deal ...
Director of the Competition Bureau of the FCS Holly Vedova notes that the technologies of the future depend on maintaining today's competitive conditions for the chip markets. “The lawsuit should serve as a strong signal that we will act aggressively to protect our critical infrastructure markets from illegal vertical mergers that have far-reaching and devastating consequences for future innovation,” she said.
The antitrust authority names among the possible consequences of the transaction undermining the business of competitors, reducing competition, innovation and product quality, increasing prices and narrowing the choice. According to the regulator, three markets will be at risk: modern systems of unmanned, autonomous driving for cars; Intelligent DPUs that enable the safe and efficient operation of data center servers and processors for cloud service providers that address data center tuning, performance, and energy efficiency needs.
In addition, the acquisition of ARM will give NVIDIA access to the confidential information of the UK company's licensees, some of which are competitors. Chip buyers regularly share and rely on sensitive information with ARM for support in the development, design, testing, debugging, troubleshooting, maintenance and improvement of their products, as the company is a neutral partner and not a competing manufacturer.
An NVIDIA spokesman said in a statement that the company is trying to "demonstrate that this deal will benefit the industry and promote competition." NVIDIA has announced on several occasions that it will invest in ARM research and development, accelerate the development of its roadmaps, and expand its offerings in ways that increase competition, create more opportunities for all ARM licensees, and expand its ecosystem.
" NVIDIA is committed to maintaining the ARM open licensing model and ensuring that its IP address is available to all interested licensees, current and future, ”the company said. NVIDIA has offered to UK and EU regulators to provide assurances that it will not disable ARM customers or change the list of its products that customers currently have access to. The UK Competition and Markets Authority said it does not believe in the effectiveness of such "behavioral" tools.
The company hopes that the deal will be closed in 2022. Meanwhile, the FCS announced that US litigation could begin in August 2022.
NVIDIA announced its acquisition of ARM from Japanese Softbank in September 2020. The deal was estimated at $ 40 billion. The purchase was opposed by Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Tesla and other companies. It has also generated interest from the antitrust authorities in the US, China and the UK. In October 2021, the European Commission announced an in-depth investigation of the deal.
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