There have been strong indications that the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP) has serious concerns about the potentially anti-competitive effects of Qualcomm's proposed acquisition of NXP Semiconductors. By now, there can be no doubt about that: the Commission's website states that Qualcomm submitted commitments four days ago. No one offers commitments if unconditional clearance is achievable.
Typically, companies discuss such proposed commitments with the Commission beforehand. If the Commission believes the commitments might be useful, it puts them to a market test, giving stakeholders an opportunity to comment. Here, there is no official confirmation--just rumors--of an ongoing market test.
As I've said earlier in the process, the only meaningful remedy here would be an obligation for Qualcomm to extend licenses (obviously on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms) to rival chipset makers. That would help Qualcomm's competitors and customers alike. With the licensed product being a chipset, the royalty base alone makes it very hard, if not practically impossible, for Qualcomm to charge anywhere near the license fees it appears to demand from device makers. But it would have been out of character for Qualcomm to propose such a commitment. I guess Qualcomm would rather walk out on the NXP deal, but I wish I turned out to have been wrong on the effectiveness of its proposed commitments, though merger remedies (other than a divestment of certain assets) are rarely helpful--in most cases they just look like they would ensure fair competition while they actually don't, either because they don't go far enough or because they lack specificity.
No matter whether Qualcomm's proposed merger remedies are helpful, the fact that Qualcomm apparently felt forced to offer any commitments in order to obtain clearance is the latest indication that regulators in different parts of the world are concerned about some aspects of Qualcomm's business model and practices.
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