This story was originally published and last updated .
Google’s acquisition of Fitbit is now complete, according to an announcement the company made earlier this morning. Google claims that the deal is always about Fitbit’s expertise in hardware, not customer data, and says it’s eased regulatory issues with a range of warranties and obligations. However, we are not sure whether the concerns of the US or Australian regulators have indeed been addressed as the investigation continues.
Google secured the European Commission’s blessing in December for the long-awaited $ 2.1 billion deal. However, there were some conditions attached to it, which were apparently addressed based on Google’s announcement. In short, Google needs to keep Fitbit user data separate, where it cannot be used for things like advertising, and third-party access to existing Fitbit web APIs must be maintained. Google can also not give Fitbit an unfair advantage in the portable Android market or give other businesses an indirect disadvantage by creating new closed APIs, etc.
It looks like it will close the merger on paper, which we have been waiting for to happen since it was announced in November 2019, but there are two possible brackets.
The one, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, raised its own objections to the agreement a few weeks ago, claiming that the investigation would only be completed on 25 March. You do not have to be a horologist to read today’s calendar and see that today (ie January 14th) is quite ahead of it. When asked for details regarding Google’s announcement that the merger was “complete”, the ACCC gave an extra thick statement, claiming that things had increased as a result of Google’s actions to a “enforcement investigation” that could be subject to legal action. . Selection excerpts from the super-long statement are below:
The ACCC will continue its investigation into the acquisition of Fitbit, Inc. (Fitbit) by Google LLC (Google), which has now been completed despite the ongoing public review of the transaction by the ACCC.
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“The decision by Google to complete the acquisition of Fitbit before we have completed our merger investigation means that we are now conducting an investigation. As a result, and depending on the results of our investigation, we will consider taking legal action on this matter, ”said ACCC Chairman Rod Sims.
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In December, the ACCC decided not to accept a long-term behavioral venture offered by Google to address competition issues due to the significant difficulties in effectively monitoring and enforcing the company’s compliance.
As this is now a completed acquisition, the ACCC will remove this case from its public informal merger register. As a result, the investigation will no longer have a predicted date. ‘
Secondly, it looks like Google also did not get US Department of Justice approval also for the merger. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Alex Okuliar tells us:
“The Antitrust Division’s investigation into Google’s acquisition of Fitbit continues. Although the division has not finally decided whether to continue enforcement action, the division continues to investigate whether Google’s acquisition of Fitbit’s competition and consumers in the The United States remains committed to conducting this investigation as thoroughly, efficiently and expeditiously as possible. “
However, a Google representative claims that this is not the case, and that it is. done get implicit approval after a waiting period:
‘We have complied with the extensive review of the DOJ over the past 14 months and the agreed waiting period has expired without them objecting to it. We keep in touch with them and are committed to answering any additional questions. We are confident that this agreement will increase competition in the portable portable market, and we have entered into commitments that we plan to implement worldwide. ‘
Google’s acquisition of Fitbit has been under investigation since 2019, and so far the DoJ has not released the results of the investigation. This may be due to the general scope of his investigations against Google, or perhaps Trump’s DoJ simply did not extend or extend the waiting period, and implicitly approved the merger by not staying on the previously set deadline. (We do not know what the process is here, and the DoJ does not appear to have released the details we can find.) We reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice for more information and pointed out the difference to Google. ; we will update as we hear more. We also contacted the Australian ACCC for more information.
Recently, Fitbit wearables has added a number of Googly features, such as Assistant Integration, and Google has also built deeper integration for wearables, as with the Assistant’s new Wellness section. Even before the merger was ‘complete’, both Google and Fitbit worked on it, and the company’s recent portable material was well reviewed. If the trend continues, it could carry better for consumers, just as the world market is going to explode.
Between Australia and the US, however, Google appears to have jumped the gun to end the merger. Perhaps the company is trying to approve rail regulatory agencies early on, though that is probably not a wise move amid so many antitrust investigations.
Google may also not have approved the U.S. Department of Justice, as all indications are that the regulatory agency’s investigation is continuing. Our coverage has been updated with both the statement that the DoJ has provided some outlets, and a statement from Google about the expiration of the DoJ’s own waiting period.