United States of America: FTC files motion to close its lawsuit against Nvidia/Arm merger

On 8 February 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a joint motion to dismiss its complaint against the Nvidia/Arm merger. The motion followed the announcement by Nvidia on 7 February 2022 that it terminated its share purchase agreement and abandoned the acquisition of Arm. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit on 2 December 2021 to block NVIDIA's planned acquisition of Arm Ltd. The FTC alleged that the merger could have negatively impacted competition and innovation in the semiconductor industry. The company Arm licenses the intellectual property (IP) on processing units to developers of semiconductor chipmakers and systems-on-chip. NVIDIA develops graphics processing units and system on chip units for data centres, automotive applications and gaming. According to the FTC, if Arm were to be acquired, NVIDIA could have restricted the access of its rivals to the Arm’s technology and obtained sensitive information regarding the licensees that Arm provided to NVIDIA’s competitors.