The CMAthe UK Competition and Markets Authority, responsible for monitoring compliance with the country’s competition laws, to investigate IBM’s purchase of software provider HashiCorp. To do this, according to the Wall Street Journal, they have opened an investigation into the operation with which they want to establish whether or not the purchase affects competition.
For now, the entity has asked interested parties for comments on the purchase, which they can do until January 16. The investigation will then begin, and the CMA has set a provisional date to communicate its conclusions and decide whether to authorize the purchase or open a more exhaustive investigation of the operation. It will be on February 25, in principle, when it will confirm whether it gives the green light to IBM to move forward, or if it should wait for the result of a more in-depth investigation.
IBM announced last April that it intended to Buy HashiCorp for about $6.4 billion. If the operation can continue, the company would take a step forward in both cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence, thanks to HashiCorp’s experience in both fields. It would also add about 4,400 clients to its current list.
HashiCorp was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, United States. Its founders are Mitchell Hashimoto and Armon Dadgar, and it is dedicated to offering tools to facilitate the management of cloud infrastructure, as well as its security. When its purchase was announced, it soon became clear that the road to closing it was not going to be easy.
The CMA, before officially confirming the step, already notified HashiCorp that it intended to review the merger. Furthermore, already is immersed in another investigation. In this case, in the United Stateswhere the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the operation.
