FTC sues to block Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm
Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks during the company’s event at Mobile World Congress Americas in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block Nvidia‘s $40 billion acquisition of Arm from SoftBank on antitrust grounds.
The deal has faced scrutiny from regulators since it was announced last year. The U.S. action is the biggest hurdle it has faced yet, and threatens whether the deal will be completed.
“The proposed vertical deal would give one of the largest chip companies control over the computing technology and designs that rival firms rely on to develop their own competing chips,” the FTC said in an announcement.
Nvidia stock was up over 2% on Thursday before the announcement, and did not move significantly on the news.
Arm is a core supplier of architecture technology to most semiconductor companies. Its Arm instruction set is at the core of nearly all mobile processors powering smartphones, including those made by Apple and Android devices that use Qualcomm chips.
But the company’s role in the chip industry was historically as a neutral supplier, raising concerns that Nvidia could cut off competitors from essential Arm technology. Some of Nvidia’s processors also use Arm-designed cores and its Arm architecture, although the company is best known for graphics processors, which use different architecture.
“The complaint alleges that the proposed merger would give Nvidia the ability and incentive to use its control of this technology to undermine its competitors, reducing competition and ultimately resulting in reduced product quality, reduced innovation, higher prices, and less choice,” the FTC said in its statement.
The FTC also said that Arm’s licensees, which include Nvidia’s competitors, share competitive information with the technology firm.
The European Commission announced an in-depth investigation into the deal in October.
“As we move into this next step in the FTC process, we will continue to work to demonstrate that this transaction will benefit the industry and promote competition,” an Nvidia representative said in a statement.
“NVIDIA is committed to preserving Arm’s open licensing model and ensuring that its IP is available to all interested licensees, current and future,” it continued.
Previously, the company said that it expected the Arm transaction to close in 2022.