He Broadcom CEO Hock Tanarrived last Friday in Brussels to meet with the authorities of the European Union. According to Reuters, Tan was attending a hearing to try to convince EU officials that he your offer to buy VMwarefor which Broadcom is willing to pay $61 billion and which the EU has objected to, It is not against free competition.
Tan attended the hearing accompanied by several executives from his company, as well as a group of lawyers. In it, the CEO of Broadcom presented his reasons and arguments for the suitability of the purchase operation before various officials of the European Commission. Among them, before the Deputy Director of Mergers of the EU, Guillaume Loriot, as well as before their counterparts from the competition agencies of the different EU countries, and the lawyers of the EU management.
The audience also spoke VMware President Sumit Dhawan, although it will not do so in person, but by videoconference. There was no third party intervention in the meeting. At the hearing were only representatives of the European Union, and Broadcom and VMware.
This hearing comes after Broadcom’s proposed purchase of VMware raised suspicions among competition watchdogs in both Europe and the United States. It was requested by Broadcom’s management, after the European Commission warned last month that the deal could restrict competition in the market for certain hardware components that run VMware software.
At Broadcom, they expected regulators to assess the presence of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in the cloud computing market as proof of what strong competition means, according to several people familiar with the operation. But it seems that this has not been the case, at least in the US and Europe, whose authorities doubt that, as they say at Broadcom, the purchase of VMware will not harm the competition.
For this reason, Broadcom is expected to take several measures aimed at clearing up the doubts of the regulatory authorities. Those focused on satisfying those of the European Union could arrive in a few days, after both parties have presented their reasons and arguments at the hearing last Friday.
Meanwhile, The European Union will make a decision on the authorization of the operation on June 21although once the EU is aware of which concessions Broadcom is going to launch, this date is delayed. In this way, Broadcom will be able to put the measures into practice before the European Union issues its final verdict on the purchase.
