U.S. FTC sues to block Nvidia deal to buy Arm

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SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block U.S. chip supplier Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) Corp’s planned $50 billion-plus acquisition of British chip design provider Arm.

The FTC said the proposed vertical deal would give one of the largest chip companies control over computing technology and designs that competitors rely on to develop their own competing chips.

Arm, Britain’s most important tech company that was sold to Japan’s SoftBank in 2016, licenses its blueprints to major chipmakers such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) and Samsung Electronics (OTC:SSNLF), underpinning the global smartphone ecosystem.

Nvidia said “as we move into this next step in the FTC process, we will continue to work to demonstrate that this transaction will benefit the industry and promote competition.” Arm declined to comment.