Broadcom's Vmware Draws More Regulatory Attention, This Time From EU

U.S. chipmaker Broadcom Inc's AVGO $61 billion Vmware, Inc VMW deal could hit a roadblock with EU antitrust regulators poised to open a full-scale investigation into the deal.
The proposed transaction reflected Broadcom's attempt to diversify its business into enterprise software but coincided with regulators' scrutiny of deals by Big Tech, Reuters reports.
Broadcom pined for early EU approval of the deal by highlighting competition from Amazon.com Inc AMZN, Microsoft Corp MSFT, and Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google in the cloud computing market.
Broadcom had a so-called state-of-play meeting with European Commission officials earlier this week.
The EU competition enforcer will likely finish its initial deal scrutiny on December 20.
Broadcom expected the timeline for the review process to extend in other vital regions due to the deal size.
Beltug, a Belgian association of CIOs & Digital Technology leaders, and its counterparts France's Cigref, CIO platform Nederland and VOICE Germany had voiced their fears over the deal leading to drastic price hikes and more brutal commercial practices against customers.
In November, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) invited comments to help it formally assess whether to launch an investigation into the Broadcom-VMware deal.
Price Action: AVGO shares closed higher by 2.57% at $544.72 on Friday.