Google Inc. (GOOG), owner of the world's largest search engine, won't be challenged by U.S. antitrust regulators over its purchase of mapping application Waze, people familiar with the matter said.
Federal Trade Commission hasn't raised concerns that the transaction might hurt competition, said the people, who asked not to be named because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Google said June 21 that it had been contacted by the agency about the transaction.
Google, based in Mountain View, California, said June 11 it was buying Waze in a deal giving it new tools to help users navigate traffic with smartphones. The Waze deal was valued at about $1.1 billion, a person familiar with the matter said then.
Peter Kaplan, an FTC spokesman, on the agency's review of the Waze transaction. Leslie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mountain View, California-based Google, declined to comment on it.
Google offered under a standstill agreement to keep the Waze business, brand and sales separate from its own business during any possible U.K. antitrust review of the deal, according to a statement dated Sept. 17 published on the website of the London-based Office of Fair Trading.
To contact the reporters on this story: Sara Forden in Washington at sforden@bloomberg.net; David McLaughlin in Washington at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net
Enlarge image 
news by October 02, 2013 at 08:42AM
{ 0 comments... Views All / Send Comment! }
Post a Comment