Intel Corp managed to raise EU red light on a 7.68 billion dollars deal to buy security software company McAfee. The EU scrutiny in the deal might delay the finalization of the transaction, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The deal called the attention of the European anti-trust watchdog, which expressed concern while making a preliminary examination of the agreement between the two corporations. Given the high concern, the deal might undergo further examination which could delay the finalization of the transaction.
Reportedly, a key element of fear for the EU’s anti-trust watchdog is the intention Intel Corp stated about incorporating security characteristics into the worldwide used computer chips it produces. The concern is that McAfee would be hard to compete against if the security software producer, owned by Intel, would have preferential access to the aforementioned features.
Intel informed the European Commission about the transaction at the end of November. As a result, the Commission started reviewing the deal and sent inquiries about potential breaches of the EU’s competition policies to other software companies active in the computer security field. The questions sent by the Commission are centered on the procedure by which Intel could achieve its objective of inserting security features into the processors and whether the chips could be constructed in a manner that would make McAfee software the only one that was compatible.