The European Commission has approved Qualcomm’s $47bn proposed acquisition of NXP. Qualcomm is a supplier of baseband chipsets (BC) for smartphones, while NXP is a supplier of several types of semiconductors, including near-field communication (NFC) and secure element (SE) chips.
Following its Phase I investigation, the Commission had raised concerns that the merged entity would engage in a range of commercial strategies in order to harm rival suppliers, including mixed bundling, pure bundling and tying of BC, NFC and SE. However, during the Phase II process the Parties were able to demonstrate that the primary concerns relating to bundling and tying were unfounded. A number of RBB papers addressing these issues were submitted to the Commission.
A narrow set of remaining concerns were resolved by remedies relating to IP licensing and interoperability, avoiding a statement of objections (SO). RBB advised Qualcomm during the merger notification, in conjunction with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan
