It has been nearly two months since Microsoft announced the acquisition of Nokia's phone department. As time goes by, this acquisition deal is also entering the practical operation phase. On October 29th, Nokia released its Q3 financial report for 2013. Following this, Nokia will convene a shareholders' meeting to vote on this transaction. In addition, this transaction still needs the approval of relevant regulatory agencies, including the European Commission, an old rival of Microsoft, and its affiliated anti-monopoly agency.
According to Reuters, Microsoft has formally submitted an application to the European Commission for the acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone division. The EU will decide whether to approve this acquisition transaction by December 4th. If Microsoft can offer more concessions regarding fair competition, the EU's decision date will be extended by 10 working days. This acquisition deal is worth 5.44 billion euros, and due to exchange rate fluctuations, it is now approximately equivalent to 7.49 billion US dollars.
The EU has previously fined Microsoft multiple times over issues such as bundling IE browser with Windows to exploit its monopoly position. In 2012, the EU made the final ruling in a 10-year anti-monopoly investigation against Microsoft, rejecting Microsoft's request to lift the 2008 fine, resulting in a final fine amount of 860 million euros.
Including the previous two fines, Microsoft has accumulated a total penalty amount of 1.64 billion euros. Earlier this year, Microsoft was again fined 561 million euros by the EU for bundling the IE browser in Windows 7 SP1 in 2009.
Nokia's latest financial report shows that its mobile phone department has begun to recover. However, it is regrettable that Microsoft is about to complete its acquisition.