EU set to formally investigate Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm

Previously, the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it would conduct a second phase of investigation into Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm which can weakens competitors’ capabilities by restricting competitors’ access to Arm’s technology, and ultimately hinder market competition. At the same time, CMA has sent a summary of the results of the first phase of the investigation to the Minister of Digitalization, Culture, Media, and Sports, Oliver Dowden.

In addition, because Nvidia has not submitted the documents required for the review to the European Commission, the agency’s review work has not even begun. According to the Financial Times report, Nvidia will submit relevant materials as soon as September 6, and then the European Commission will formally conduct a transaction investigation. In view of the generally stricter review by regulatory agencies, Nvidia is facing increasing resistance. It is likely that it will not be able to complete the transaction in March 2022 and will be forced to choose to postpone it to September 2022.

According to the Daily Telegraph report, Tesla, Amazon, and Samsung have shared their opinions on the acquisition with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and all expressed their opposition. It is expected that the FTC will announce the detailed investigation results in the next few weeks. Prior to this, some media said that at least one of the three companies of Qualcomm, Microsoft, and Google stated that FTC needed to “cancel the transaction.”