European Union: Announced EU Commission investigation into the proposed acquisition of VMware by Broadcom

On 20 December 2022, the European Commission announced an in-depth investigation into the proposed acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, after the proposed transaction was notified to the Commission on 15 November 2022. The Commission's preliminary investigation found that the acquisition could allow Broadcom to degrade interoperability between VMware's server virtualization software and competitors' hardware components, including NICs, FC HBAs and storage adapters, in order to benefit its own hardware, or to prevent competitors from having access to VMware's software. The Commission will also examine whether Broadcom may hinder the development of SmartNICs by other providers and whether it intends to bundle VMware's virtualization software with its other products. The investigation has a deadline of May 11, 2023.