Microsoft, Google Acquisitions Move Ahead
Both Microsoft and Google have advanced in the regulatory reviews of their respective announced acquisitions — albeit on different shores.
The Federal Trade Commission has apparently given tacit approval to Microsoft’s $6 billion purchase of digital ad agency aQuantive by allowing the 30-day investigation window to expire without any further requests for information, a Microsoft spokesman said Friday.
The FTC had the option of requesting more data about the deal, as it did in June with Google’s pending $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.
“We believe these are very different transactions,” said spokesman Guy Esnouf. Referring to the anti-competitive and privacy issues involved in the DoubleClick purchase, he said, “They really do demand closer scrutiny.”
Meanwhile, Google’s acquisition will face review by European Union regulators rather than by the national authorities in individual European countries, it was revealed last week.
Since national regulators have not asked to review the case, it will come by default in front of the European Commission, the Brussels-based group that investigates antitrust issues on the continent.
“Given the pan-European nature of both Google and DoubleClick’s businesses, we felt that the commission was best placed to review the acquisition,” Julia Holtz, a Google lawyer in London, said in an e-mail quoted by Bloomberg News.
