List of global deals that collapsed due to regulators’ rejection

SoftBank Group announced the sale of chip designer Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion in a deal set to reshape the semiconductor landscape.
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The deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals including in Britain, the United States and China, will be putting a long-neutral technology vendor to Apple and others under the control of a single player.

It could face potential pushback from regulators, as the ongoing U.S.-China tech spats have put any global deal in the semiconductor sector under much tighter scrutiny, Reuters reported.

List of prominent global deals that collapsed due to regulators’ rejection in the last five years:

# U.S. President Donald Trump in March, 2018, blocked microchip maker Broadcom’s proposed takeover of Qualcomm on national security grounds.

# Qualcomm walked away from a $44 billion deal to buy NXP Semiconductors after failing to secure Chinese regulatory approval in July, 2018 amidst China-U.S. trade talks.

# Semiconductor equipment maker Lam Research Corp in 2016 terminated its $10.6 billion deal to buy rival KLA-Tencor after the U.S. Department of Justice told the companies it had serious concerns that the deal would harm competition.

Some global deals were able to get China’s approval after making some changes or concessions:

# China approved Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola in 2012 on the condition that Google keep Android free and available without discriminating against any particular device maker for five years.

# Nokia in 2015 had to combine its China business with former Alcatel-Lucent’s in the country for its 15.6 billion euro merger with the French company to be approved by China. Beijing also stipulated that local telecoms groups could renegotiate rates on mobile technology patents borrowed from Nokia and Alcatel if they were ever sold on to a third party.

# China in 2017 conditionally approved chipmaker Broadcom’s $5.5 billion acquisition of Brocade Communications Systems.

# China approved HP’s $1.1 billion purchase of Samsung Electronics’ printer business with certain restrictions in 2017, citing concerns about the U.S. firm’s dominance of the domestic laser printer market.

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