Google-Motorola Deal to Face Chinese Obstacles Too?

Tweet

Google wants to buy Motorola but that’s not just a simple $12.5 billion deal for the search giant. The purchase must be approved by regulatory commissions in the USA but also in the EU and other regions, which is what you’d expect from such scenarios. What you didn’t see coming, and neither did Google, or at least ignored it thus far, is China.

Yes, that old “enemy” of Google is reminding everyone, according to Reuters, that nobody asked them if buying Motorola is okay. In other words, China’s Commerce Ministry wants “an application for regulatory approval from Google Inc:”

Under Chinese laws, enterprises that run businesses in China and that earn annual revenues of 10 billion yuan ($1.55 billion) globally and 400 million yuan in China must seek government approval for a proposed acquisition.

“The ministry has so far not received any application for an anti-monopoly review,” Shen Danyang, a spokesman at China’s Commerce Ministry, said in response to the Google-Motorola deal.

Now that’s certainly an interesting new problem for Google, considering the company’s recent past with this super power, but one that could go away very quickly; all Google needs to do is submit the application. Of course, submitting the appropriate paperwork in China will not guarantee that the Google-Motorola deal will be swiftly approved by the Chinese government. Not to mention that the U.S. and EU governments, currently eying Google in various antitrust investigations, may also have a hard time with this Google-Motorola deal.

What’s a bit ironic in this China situation is the fact that the country has failed to properly fight against its own knock-off industry. So mentioning “anti-monopoly” reviews, while a fair point to make, comes off a bit strange from a country in which, just recently, a full Apple store has been reproduced without Apple’s consent. How much monopoly could one have in a market where fake stuff arrives in stores about the same time the new products get launched?