US: Broadcom wins antitrust consent to buy Brocade with conditions

On Monday the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Chipmaker Broadcom has received US antitrust approval to buy Brocade Communications Systems.

The buyout had already received approval in Europe and Japan earlier this year. The US$5.5 billion deal is the latest in the chip industry as companies bulk up in response to growing demand for chips in connected devices and cars.

As a condition of approval, Broadcom agreed to build a firewall to prevent the merged company from using information it gains as Cisco System, supplier to compete in selling the switches as Cisco’s competitor, the FTC said.

Broadcom supplies Cisco, and Brocade competes with Cisco, in making fiber channel switches that transfer large amounts of data between servers and other devices, the FTC said.

Broadcom agreed that the business group which supplies Cisco would work from separate facilities and that a firewall would prevent the use of Cisco’s information for any purpose other than supplying Cisco, the FTC said.

Full Content: WHBL

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