EU: Western Digital’s SanDisk acquisition cleared

The European Union on Thursday cleared computer disk drive maker Western Digital Corp’s $19 billion acquisition of rival SanDisk, after finding that the takeover wouldn’t negatively impact competition in Europe.

“We have worked efficiently, in cooperation with our US counterparts, to scrutinize this takeover in the strategically important IT sector and concluded that there would be no adverse effects on either retail or commercial customers,” said EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager.

The European Commission, the bloc’s top antitrust regulator, said the overlap of the companies’ activities was limited to the market for flash memory storage but that the merged entity wouldn’t be able to shut out competitors from access to flash memory and that other rival flash memory producers will still have a substantial customer base.

Western Digital already sells some storage devices that use flash memory chips in addition to disk drives. By adding SanDisk’s chip production capability—part of a joint venture with Japan’sToshiba Corp.—Western Digital would gain an internal supply of the chips at attractive prices.

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