President Donald Trump said said that Broadcom must cease its attempt to take over Qualcomm due to national security concerns raised by the deal, per The Wall Street Journal.
The Committee on Foreign Investment, the US national-security panel, may soon suggest to go against Broadcom’s attempt to take over Qualcomm with a $117 billion bid. The added that the Singapore-based company has repeatedly violated one of its order during its pursued to get the deal approved.
The committee told lawyers for the companies in a Sunday letter that their investigation into Broadcom’s bid s expected to “close soon” and that “so far,” the deal would propose a national security risk, if the deal were to go through. CFIUS is a multiagency panel that reviews foreign deals and can advise the president if the deals should be blocked due to national security threats. The agency gave the companies until March 12 deadline to submit any and all further information “as the parties will likely not have an additional opportunity to submit information thereafter,” according to the Sunday letter that was signed by an official at Treasury.
The letter says that in the absence of any information that changes CFIUS’s assessment of the deal’s national security risks, the panel “would consider taking further action, including but not limited to referring the transaction to the president for a decision.”
Previously, Broadcom is making moves to become a United States company. If it goes that route, it could argue that the deal falls outside of the panel’s jurisdiction, which is basically a loophole. After CFIUS announced its March 4 decision to investigate the bid, Broadcom has been trying contact Congress as to why the deal isn’t a risk to national security, and Qualcomm on its part appointed a new independent chairman.
