The US Department of Justice has made a so-called “second request” for information regarding Google’s US$12.5bn acquisition of handset maker Motorola Mobility.
In a regulatory filing, Motorola Mobility said that both itself and Google had both…
The US Department of Justice has made a so-called “second request” for information regarding Google’s US$12.5bn acquisition of handset maker Motorola Mobility.
In a regulatory filing, Motorola Mobility said that both itself and Google had both received a request for “Additional Information and Documentary Material” from the DOJ’s antitrust department.
Motorola Mobility said: “The companies intend to cooperate fully and respond expeditiously to the DOJ.”
It repeated earlier statements that the transaction is expected to close by the end of 2011 or in early 2012.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said that it was looking at the proposal, but would not give any further comment.
In a post on Google’s public policy blog, Dennis Woodside, an SVP at the company, described the DOJ’s action as “pretty routine”.
He said: “We believe very strongly this is a pro-competitive transaction that is good for Motorola Mobility, good for consumers and good for our partners.”
Woodside added that although this means that the deal would not be closing “right away”, they were confident that the DOJ “will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes”.
A partner at a major New York law firm said that only around 4-5% of transactions filed in recent years received a second request.
He said that it signals that the agency has some serious concerns about the merits of the deal, but not necessarily that it would ultimately seek to challenge the transaction.
The second request process takes on average around 90 days to be completed, but they can take far longer, with some cases stretching for over a year.
The companies announced the deal back in mid-August. As a part of the deal, Google would acquire Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio, which includes 17,000 patents and 7,500 pending patents.
Google insisted at the time that it would keep its smartphone operating system Android open and that it would run Motorola Mobility as a separate business unit.
