(Reuters) - Britain's competition regulator said on Wednesday it had started the first phase of an investigation into U.S. chipmaker Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) Inc's $61 billion acquisition of cloud-computing firm VMware (NYSE:VMW) Inc.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said in November it was investigating whether the deal between the two U.S.-listed companies could substantially hurt competition in Britain, adding that it had until March 22 to decide.
The Broadcom-VMware deal was one of the biggest announcements globally in 2022, marking the chipmaker's attempt to diversify into the enterprise software segment.
Tech deals have drawn intense scrutiny from regulators around the world on concerns over too much market clout in the hands of a few firms and the possibility of bigger companies acquiring startups only to shut them down.
Broadcom and VMware did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.