ARM Nvidia deal goes to full investigation in the UK

By Nick Flaherty, eeNews Europe (August 20, 2021)

The reassurances offered by Nvidia in the $40bn takeover of ARM are not sufficient, says the competition and Mergers Authority in a blow to the deal

The UK’s competition authority is to examine Nvidia’s takeover of chip designer ARM in detail following an initial investigation. The move is a blow to the $40bn deal, one of teh largest ever in the semiconductor industry, and likely to be mirrored by European, US and Chinese regulators.

The UK Competition and Mergers Authority (CMA) says it is concerned that the merged business would have the ability and incentive to harm the competitiveness of Nvidia’s rivals by restricting access to ARM’s intellectual property (IP). This loss of competition could stifle innovation across a number of markets, including data centres, gaming, the internet of things and self-driving cars, it says.

Nvidia offered reassurances that this would not happen when the deal was announced, but the CMA found that these would not alleviate its concerns, nor would selling off part of ARM.

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