British regulator investigating NVIDIA-ARM deal

Back in September, NVIDIA announced its audacious plan to acquire British chip designer ARM for ARM for a whopping $40 billion. While NVIDIA remained confident in recent months that it will be able to finalize the deal, not everyone is convinced the deal will fly past regulatory approval.

In particular, there are worries about the power this will give NVIDIA over the ARM ecosystem as well concerns whether China will give its nod of approval for this mega-deal given the trade war with the US and the potential geopolitical implications of this deal. At the moment, ARM is held by Japanese holding company SoftBank.

British regulator CMA just announced a probe of NVIDIA's deal over concerns on the impact on competition:

The Competition and Markets Authority said Wednesday it will look into the deal's effect on how Arm treats Nvidia's rivals. The watchdog said it will examine whether the deal will give Arm "an incentive to withdraw, raise prices or reduce the quality" of its services to Nvidia's chipmaking competitors.

Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the Competition and Markets Authority, said the watchdog “will work closely with other competition authorities around the world to carefully consider the impact of the deal and ensure that it doesn’t ultimately result in consumers facing more expensive or lower quality products.”