UK competition agency provisionally OKs Broadcom’s $6B VMware acquisition
The UK’s Competition Market Authority (CMA) has provisionally cleared Broadcom’s proposed acquisition of VMWare, paving the way for the $61 billion deal to go ahead.
In November 2022, the CMA announced it was launching an in-depth investigation into the proposed deal, looking into whether the proposed merger “may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services.”
In particular, the CMA was concerned that the deal could harm the ability of Broadcom’s rivals to compete with VMware’s server virtualisation software, and if there would be a potential financial benefit to Broadcom and VMware if they were to make rival products work less well with VMware’s software