BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. chipmaker Broadcom is seeking European Union antitrust approval for its $61 billion bid for cloud computing company VMware, Broadcom said on Tuesday in a statement. “We are confident that this deal does not present any competition issues and look forward to working with the European Commission throughout this process”, the company said. The EU competition watchdog will decide by Dec. 20 whether to clear the deal. It can open a four-month investigation if it has serious concerns.
Announced in May, the deal is the second biggest globally so far this year and marks Broadcom’s attempt to diversify its business into enterprise software.
Tech deals have drawn intense scrutiny from regulators around the world concerned about power being concentrated in a few players and the possibility of bigger companies acquiring startups only to shut them down.
(This story has been corrected to fix EU decision date to Dec. 20 from Nov. 20)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee Writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Mark Potter)
