Alphabet (GOOGL) will find out whether its $32 billion acquisition of cloud security platform Wiz will be given the green light by EU regulators early next month.
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Google Decision Coming
According to a filing on the European Commission website today, EU antitrust regulators will decide whether to give their approval, or not, by February 10.
The Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, can either clear the deal with or without demanding concessions during its preliminary review, or it can open a full-scale investigation if it has serious concerns.
Alphabet announced the deal last March as part of its aim to enhance its cybersecurity offerings and better compete with rivals such as Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT). The Wiz security platform connects to all major clouds and code environments to help prevent cybersecurity incidents.
Alphabet said at the time that it also hoped the deal would accelerate two large and growing trends in the AI era: improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds (multicloud). It will also hope to keep its share price surging in the months ahead – see above.
Frosty U.S. Relations
Last November, the U.S. Department of Justice said it had finished its review, which means the agency will not block the acquisition.
The Justice Department ended its review on October 24, and the Federal Trade Commission posted the notice soon after. The move, known as early termination, signalled that U.S. officials no longer saw the deal as a barrier to completion.
Wiz Chief Executive Officer Assaf Rappaport noted at the time that the agreement remains under review by competition agencies outside the U.S.
The relationship between U.S. tech, the U.S. government and European regulators has turned frosty in recent months. That’s because of increased regulatory action against tech titans such as Google, Meta (META) and Amazon over alleged antitrust practices.
Europe is trying to accelerate the development of its own tech and AI sector to compete with an arguably less reliable U.S. under President Trump.
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